


Precious Serpent

by karmadog



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Biology (Supernatural), Angel Culture & Customs (Supernatural), Angels are an Endangered Species, Archangel Gabriel (Supernatural), BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), But it's platonic - Freeform, Castiel (Supernatural)'s True Form, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel in a Female Vessel (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Accepts Castiel's True Nature, Flashbacks, Framing Story, Gen, Guilty Dean Winchester, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Mayan Mythology - Freeform, Mediator Sam Winchester, Past Balthazar/Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Dean Winchester, References to Aztec Religion & Lore, Syncretic Religion, Tzitzimimeh, but it's in the past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2020-06-25 16:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 91,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19749190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmadog/pseuds/karmadog
Summary: Dean and Sam are researching the case of a creature that hasn't been seen since the fall of the Aztec Empire, a creature they've never dealt with before.  But Cas has.  After all, he was stationed in Mesoamerica for over two millenia--under a different name.





	1. Curriculum Vitae

Dean emerged from the bunker’s firing range wiping his face with the bottom half of his already damp shirt. It was fairly slow right now--well, no, it wasn’t. The Mark was still an unsolvable problem that pervaded the Bunker and filled Dean (and Sam and Cas too, he could see it in their eyes) with an underlying dread that was usually elicited by undefusable bombs. But they had no leads, not even the beginning of an idea on how to eradicate the Mark, and so they had gotten back to business. Saving people. Hunting things. Anything to keep their minds off of the elephant in the room.

And that was how Sam and Dean had come upon a disturbing case in Texas: people with their chests hollowed and burned out. And worse--the victims had all been children. They had managed to whittle it down to a few suspects after a few days of mind-numbing research, and their number one was some sort of Aztec monster deity that went by the name of Tzitzimimeh--skeletal, undead women who had died in childbirth that attacked during the onset of Armageddon. Dean didn’t want to dwell on the implications of _that_ for too long.

It was this topic that Sam was presumably researching when Dean entered the library. His brother, however, was not hunched over a book, or tapping away at his laptop. He was speaking to none other than Cas--whom Dean hadn’t seen in weeks.

Their conversation died as soon as Dean entered the room. He gave them a look. “Smooth, guys, real smooth. You wanna fill me in on what you were talking about?”

Sam responded, almost too quickly, “Cas and I were discussing the case. You know, the tzitzimimeh?” Cas pulled an expression that made it quite obvious that that was news to him, but it seemed he had been around humans enough by now to know not to correct Sam.

“Right.” Dean set his jaw and walked towards the kitchen. “I’m grabbing food, you want any?”

“We still have any of those apples left?”

“Seriously, Sam? I meant anything _other_ than rabbit food.”

“The tzitzimimeh,” Cas cut in, and his voice had taken on an odd quality, enough so that Dean turned back to really look at him.

Cas looked pretty damn exhausted. His trenchcoat was rumpled (Dean found himself wondering, not for the first time, what had ever happened to the old one), there were deep bags under his eyes, and he looked like he’d let shaving go for a little longer than was normal for him (which didn’t make any sense at all, Dean realized belatedly--angels didn’t have to worry about that kind of stuff, did they?). Dean realized that he hadn’t really seen Cas around a lot recently, and that he had virtually no idea what he was up to nowadays. He knew he’d somehow stolen another angel’s grace, a decision that would have shocked Dean if he’d had more time to process it. He had a vague impression that he had been roadtripping it in that ugly Continental of his with some other angel, which Dean wasn’t entirely comfortable with. And there had been that whole walking away from an army thing. For him. Which Dean had put to the back of his mind, because after everything that had happened, the Gadreel nightmare, kicking Cas out--that was, well.

“You know something about them?” Sam asked, bringing Dean’s attention back to the current conversation.

“You’re hunting tzitzimimeh?” Cas asked, apparently dropping all pretense that Sam and he had been discussing it prior to Dean’s entrance.

“Yeah, a case in the Woodlands, Texas. We were gonna head out tomorrow. You seen them before?” Dean asked gruffly.

“Seen them before?” Cas gave a quiet, very human chuckle, and Dean found himself wondering if Cas had developed that particular expression after losing his original Grace. “I used to fight them all the time. During the height of the Mexica--the Aztec--Empire. They were actually quite a nuisance.”

Sam gave his patented interested blink. “You were there during the reign of the Aztecs?”

“I was stationed in Mesoamerica for, oh, almost two thousand years. Around the time that the Maya started building great cities. I saw the rise of both empires. I was only pulled off that assignment as the first Europeans were showing up. There were actually a lot of us stationed there; God had a vested interest in keeping those great empires thriving, and we prevented their destruction from volcanoes, hurricanes...all sorts of natural disasters.”

“Wait, so...huh. Wow. How much of that stuff was real?”

“How much of what stuff?”

“I mean, all of the gods they worshiped. Those flying serpent gods and all the others.”

Cas narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Flying serpent gods…”

“Uh, you know, Quetzalcoatl’s probably the most famous, but they showed up a lot. Can’t pronounce most of their names, though.”

Cas gave a faint smile. “Sam, what exactly do you think we look like?”

This question seemed a little out of left field to Dean, but it apparently wasn’t for Sam, because his eyes widened suddenly and his jaw dropped slightly.

Cas went on, “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t know, Sam. Vessels can see the angels that possess them, can’t they? Jimmy certainly did.”

“You could say I was...preoccupied,” Sam admitted with a rueful smile. Cas gave an understanding nod and looked down at his shoes.

Dean had been pretty lost from the beginning of the conversation. “Seriously, can someone fill me in here?” he said, popping the tab off the beer he had retrieved from the fridge.

So Cas did.

* * *

900 AD, Present Day Southern Mexico

“Chimalma, what are you DOING?”

Chimalma turned to watch her husband gather up their few most precious possessions--their wedding jewelry, a jar that his mother had made right before she passed and, of course, seedlings to replant in a new location if their farm was utterly destroyed. “Noche, get out here!” she said, gesturing excitedly at the storm raging outside their home. She turned back just in time to watch as a positively massive branch shoot past, at least three times her height in length. The trees nearly bent over with the force of the gale, and the skies were dark with vengeful clouds. It was the beginnings of a hurricane--and it was magnificent.

Suddenly Nochehuatl was tugging her arm from behind. “I am not going to lose the most precious thing I have because you want to watch a storm. We need to get to higher ground, have you got everything?”

Chimalma gave him a bright smile and waggled the fingers of her empty hands at him. Nochehuatl rolled his eyes in exasperation and pushed her out the door gently.

They were not the only ones running. This storm had come upon them quite suddenly, and no one in their community had had time to get to higher ground. Her neighbor Fabio was desperately attempting to corral his three children towards the foot of the hill adjacent to their village; old woman Xmucane slipped and fell in the thickening mud. The torrential rains were turning the worn footpaths into fast-rushing streams and Chimalma felt the first stirrings of real fear break through her excitement.

The world lit up in stark relief at the same moment that a terrific clap of thunder rent the skies apart, rattling Chimalma’s ribcage inside her chest. Everyone seemed to drop simultaneously, cowering. Chimalma lifted her head slightly to look at the sky just in time to see a positively massive shadow roll through the clouds.

Chimalma couldn’t have really explained what she was looking at, mostly because it defied all logic. When she truly looked at it, it wasn’t a shadow--quite the opposite, in fact. She would have mistaken it for lightening if it hadn’t bore an unmistakable resemblance to a wing.

Except wings were not a quarter league across.

The winged ribbon of light (Chimalma never saw all of it at one time, it was far too vast) made a dizzying series of feints, swoops, and barrel rolls, disappearing into the clouds just to dart out in a completely different location. So shocked and mesmerized by the sight was Chimalma that she completely forgot about the storm raging around her, completely forgot the fact that her life was in danger.

A muttered curse at her side told her that she was not the only one who had seen the behemoth in the sky--Nochehuatl was peering up from under the arms he had flung over his head. “What is--what--” Others had caught sight of it, too; it seemed that everyone had abandoned their mad dash for safety to gaze up in awe--and fear.

After a few minutes of staring agog at the massive sky being, Chimalma finally noticed that the storm seemed to be moving off--and with it the creature. The wind had slowed, the deluge of rain had turned to a soft drizzle, and Chimalma could even feel the soft warmth of the sun at her back. The clouds parted, and for the first time she got a good look at the creature.

Although the sky was empty of objects to lend perspective, it was clear that the creature was giant beyond comprehension. Its long, serpentine body stretched thousands of feet through the sky, twisting and spiraling in on itself. Flames seemed to coat its body, rising from the back of its (three? four?) heads and racing along its spine. Where Chimalma had only made out one or two wings at a time before, she now saw no less than _three_ pairs, also coated in bright green flames that lay sleekly across the surface of the wings as if feathers. The wing pairs flapped alternately, the middle pair pushing down as the other two raised, and with each downward push a terrific clap of thunder shattered the now clear blue sky. Each wing would have been able to cover the surface of a small hill.

The feathered serpent twined over the treetops and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

There was silence among the villagers for a long moment. Finally, Nochehuatl broke it.

“What. Was. That.”

Loud muttering broke out among the crowd. Chimalma caught snatches of phrases-- “demon” and “caused the storm” seemed to feature strongly in the conversations. Something about both of those theories didn’t sit right with Chimalma for some reason, but as she had no theories of her own to put forth she made no comment.

The booming voice of Tupac, one of the elders, broke over the susurrations. “Everybody, calm! Whatever that was, it’s clear that it caused the storm. We have to investigate. Every able-bodied man, I want you to go back to your homes and get every sharp implement you have. Meet back at the village square.”

The mutterings took on a nervous tone, and Nochehuatl said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You saw the size of that thing!”

“Yeah,” Fabio said, his arms tightening around his children. “ _Nothing_ we have is gonna work on that thing. We should send someone into the city, have them send help.”

“There is _no time_ for that!” Tupac said, setting his jaw. “It would take at least a day for a runner to get back here with reinforcements. Meanwhile that serpent could be back here at any moment!”

“Wh--what exactly do you plan to do when we find it?” Nochehuatl burst out angrily. “Beat it with a few shovels?”

“Find out what it wants,” Chimalma said quietly, but everyone turned to look at her.

Chimalma had just remembered something from last year’s trade with the southern city-states, and it was this something that made her uneasy with the assumptions her neighbors were throwing around about the visitor in the sky. There had been tales of the unimaginable, and among them had been intimations of some sort of giant, plumed serpent--Kul-something--or was it Vucub? Chimalma had kindly humored what she thought must have been a simple people at the time, the last sorry stragglers of a dying empire. But then again that was before she had seen...whatever that had been.

“Find out what it wants,” Chimalma repeated, “and appease it if we can. Don’t go in there with torches and pitchforks. Besides, we don’t know if the serpent caused the storm. The hurricane dissipated when it showed; at least, that’s what it looked like to me.”

Tupac frowned, then turned to the other two elders and conversed quietly with them. Finally, he turned back to the group of frightened farmers. “Very well. But I still want everyone armed. Chima, you’re coming, too. You’re the one who had the brilliant idea of making diplomatic overtures to a flying monster, you get to be our ambassador.”

“Uh-uh. No. _That_ is not happening,” Nochehuatl said sharply, draping an arm around Chimalma’s shoulders and pulling her protectively towards him.

Chimalma shrugged him off and sighed. “Right. Guess I should have seen that coming. Well, let’s get on with it, then.”

And that was how she found herself by Tupac’s side twenty minutes later, leading thirty or so men into the thick of the rainforest.

* * *

The party was so quiet that the Chimalma could hear every drop of rain falling off of the great leaves of the ferns, every squelch of feet in the dense undergrowth. The humidity seemed to have ramped up upon their entry into the dense forest, and where beads of sweat had originally gathered at the nape of her neck, there was now what Chimalma would classify as a small stream running steadily down her spine. They had been in the forest for almost an hour and were no closer to finding what they were looking for.

“How hard can this thing be to find?” Fabio griped. “It takes up the whole skyline.”

“Shhh,” Tupac said, raising a hand to halt the party. “Do you hear that?”

At first Chimalma had no idea what he was talking about. The fat droplets falling off the leaves?

No. There. The sound of rushing water.

Which might not have been so strange given the fact that they were in a rainforest, except for the small fact that _there were no rivers nearby_.

Tupac led them forward slowly. Now Chimalma could sense the area growing lighter--the trees were thinning. But that made absolutely no sense--the farming village they called home had stood there for generations, and they knew this area by heart from years of hunting. There should not be a clearing here.

And yet there was. And a whole damned river had popped into existence, too, how interesting.

Tupac walked forward to the edge of the stream and poked it tentatively with his cane. “The work of the demon,” he said with a tone of surety, ad Chimalma somehow managed to not respond that it might just be the work of pre-hurricane flooding.

As if the word “demon” were somehow a signal, something truly amazing and frightening happened in that next moment: the leaves rustled with a mighty gust of wind, pulling from their branches and gathering together in a vague wing-shaped whirlwind, rocks and ferns ripped out of the ground and swirled in midair, and the entire stream lifted off of the ground and snaked around itself, into a the unmistakable form of--

The plumed monstrosity peered at them with one of thousands of eyes, each the size of Nochehuatl’s and Chimalma’s one-room home, each a blazing wheel of fiery blue. It blinked the three eyes on each side of it massive head slowly and separately and retracted its neck, rearing up above the treetops, spreading its wings to arc up over the canopy. Flaming feathers in dazzling shades of green, blue, and red burst along its wings and spine and flowered outwards at the base of its tail. One of its four mouths yawned open to reveal three golden tubes that trumpeted together in unison.

**BE NOT AFRAID**

Despite the creature’s (words? thoughts?), everybody in the party instantly dropped to the ground, cowering, clamping their hands over their ears. Everybody, that was, except Chimalma. She peered right back at the creature. “No offense, but...what are you?”

**A CELESTIAL GUARDIAN**

**I WARD OFF THE STORMS**

“I knew it,” Chimalma muttered under her breath. “Why?

**BECAUSE ITZAMNÁ COMMANDED IT**

Itzamná...she felt she had heard that name before...the traders from the south? But the creature, the...guardian, had lowered one of its massive heads toward her now, turning so that one of its great eyes was only a few feet from her.

**THE OTHERS ARE AFRAID**

Chimalma dared to turn her away from the guardian just enough to see that, indeed, everyone was still covering their ears. “Hey, everyone! It says its here to chase off the storms. It comes in peace. I think.”

Nochehuatl yelled out without uncovering his ears, “How can you stand that? My ears…” He took one hand away just long enough for Chimalma to see the unmistakable dark roan of blood. She took a step towards him in alarm, but the guardian started to speak again and Nochehuatl clapped his hand back to his ear.

**MY REAL VOICE CAN BE OVERWHELMING TO HUMANS**

“Well then, uh, maybe you should stop talking...sir?”

**I CAN SPEAK THROUGH A VESSEL**

“A vessel?”

**I CAN TAKE CONTROL OF A HUMAN BODY**

**AND SPEAK THROUGH THEM**

“I have a feeling I know who you’re going to ask…”

**CERTAIN PEOPLE CAN PERCEIVE MY TRUE VOICE**

**ONLY SUCH PEOPLE CAN SERVE AS MY VESSEL**

**AND YOU ARE**

It paused, as if searching for the right words.

**NOT AFRAID**

Chimalma sighed. If that's the emotion it was reading off of her, then it was way off track. “If it’ll keep you from blowing everyone’s ears out...What do I have to do?”

**SAY YES**

Chimalma looked into the creature’s fiery eye, the one she could see. In its center was not a pupil, but an abyss, and in it Chimalma could swear she could see eternity. She breathed in. “Yes.”

The trumpets in its mouth reached for her, around her, and she could feel icy fire latch on to the nape of her neck and plunge down her throat. It seeped into every corner of her mind, it shot down her spine, through her legs and arms, to the very edges of her toes and fingers. A roaring filled her ears. She was in a waterfall, she _was_ the waterfall, she was the very stars in the sky, and the other stars spoke to her urgently in an ancient language not meant for the human mind, much less the ears.

But _she_ was not the waterfall, the stars. It was this creature, this magnificent being, and it was reaching into the depths of her muscle memory and her language centers (she wasn’t entirely sure what this meant, but she could feel it in the creature’s thoughts). The being had many names, its true name unpronounceable by the human tongue. Astike in the Indus Valley, Castiel in the Mediterranean (Chimalma had no idea where these mysterious places were) and here--

She was drowning. She was floating. She was chained to a star. She was flying.

Nochehuatl watched in horror, hands still clamped over his ears, helpless, as the monster attached itself to Chimalma, _entered_ her, _his wife_ , no, _not her, not her--_

The creature yanked Chimalma around and had her take a stiff step forward, puppeteering her with its tongues just as it seemed to dissipate into the background in a swirl of leaves and water. Slowly, carefully, Nochehuatl uncovered his ears. The terrible trumpeting whine of the creature had left with it.

Alone of the still terrified party, Nochehuatl approached his wife. She stood stiffly and regarded him with a detached yet interested expression that looked wholly unlike her.

“Ch-Chimalma?” he said, reaching a shaking hand towards her.

“I am not your wife,” she said with hardly any inflection at all, and Nochehuatl flinched, yanking his hand back.

“I am Quetzalcoatl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you go! Cas is our favorite feathered serpent deity. And what were the other angels doing at this time? What of all those stories about Quetzalcoatl? This will be an anthology of sorts, with each chapter either an original story or an adapted story from either Aztec or Mayan mythology.
> 
> I got the idea for this after spending a summer in Guatemala and reading the Popol Vuh, the Mayan sacred texts. The Aztec and Mayan religions were different but did have enough crossover that I wanted to include both, which is why I set the story at the tail end of the Mayan empire and before the Aztec one. Still not sure about whether I like the location and time setting, though, maybe subject to change. Suggestions?
> 
> Also, I know Q is represented as a man usually, but I thought, what the hey, Cas in a female vessel is interesting. Also, fun fact, his "feather" colors are based off of the Guatamalan national bird, the quetzal.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you have a favorite Aztec/Mayan story you would like adapted for this!


	2. Butterflies and Hurricanes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will are Texas-bound; Quetzalcoatl meets the king.

Dean pointed at Cas with the same hand that was now wrapped around his now warm beer. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you’re a giant flying snake?”

Cas rolled his eyes in exasperation. “What did you think we were, Dean? Giant humans with wings?”

Dean had no answer to that because the few times he had dwelt briefly on what his socially awkward, stuffy, trenchcoated friend might actually look like, well, that _was_ sort of what he had pictured. _Rose is Rose_ style, maybe, when the guardian angel was in warrior mode. And now that he was thinking about it, he did have to admit to himself that was a little ridiculous. But a snake?

He found himself looking back over the thousands of memories he had that featured Castiel--all of the weird, too-close staring contests, the countless diners, a brothel for God’s sake. Now _that_ was an image he didn’t need in his head. No wonder the guy was awkward around the ladies.

Cas seemed to sense the direction of his thoughts, because he said with a quirk of his lips -- _Jimmy’s lips_ , Dean thought briefly-- “I think you might be having a little trouble getting past that idea, Dean. To be honest, that’s why I never brought it up. I know you tend to value non-humans less than your own kind.”

That snapped Dean out of his thoughts like a slap in the face. “What’s that supposed to mean? You thought I’d, what, like you less if I knew? What the hell, Cas. I knew you weren’t human. No offense, but you make it pretty damned obvious.” He shut his mouth abruptly, not at all sure where that hostility had come from. He absent-mindedly scratched at his arm.

“Dean…” Sam said with an oddly sad tone, but Cas looked as unruffled as ever. “I didn’t mean it that way, I meant...you have reason to be wary of non-humans, and of angels especially. Indeed, you hunt non-humans for a living. It would be concerning if you didn’t mistrust us to a certain extent.”

“Yeah, well, I wish we made a living off of it,” Dean said, tilting the rest of the beer down his throat. He put the empty bottle down, not meeting Cas’s eyes...or his vessel’s eyes, at least.

Sam managed to salvage the awkward situation by going into nerd mode. “So how were people able to see you? Back then. How did you not burn their eyes out?”

“Well, it wasn’t _exactly_ my true form,” Castiel admitted. There is this--Enochian art form, I guess you could say, _irqaaol_ , self from creation. We create corporeal manifestations of our true selves by gathering material from nature--water, leaves, stones, even lightning. Lucifer had a fondness for using lava. But I was never the best at it. Balthazar could put on a real performance.” Castiel’s eyes went distant with pleasant memory, but then his face fell and he looked away. Dean had a vague idea that Balthazar had died at the height of the angelic civil war, but he didn’t know the details. Watching Castiel’s expressions play out on Jimmy Novak’s face (he seemed more acutely aware of this distinction now then he had ever been before), Dean _was_ certain of one thing: Balthazar had been more than an ally to Castiel. He had been a friend.

Dean was caught off guard by the pang of possessiveness he felt at that realization.

Then he remembered something that had been gnawing at the edges of his mind during Castiel’s tale. “Wait. I’m not a scholar and a nerd like Sam, but didn’t the Aztec and Maya sacrifice people? To you?”

“Quetzalcoatl didn’t take sacrifices,” Sam cut in hurriedly, but he glanced at Cas as he said this. “Right?”

“I did not,” Castiel said, looking distinctly uncomfortable, “but many...many of my brethren do.”

“What?” Dean spluttered.

“You two should start heading towards the site of the attacks,” Cas said, avoiding his gaze. “They make quick work once they’ve begun.”

“Uh-uh. You don’t get to get out of an explanation that easily.”

“He’s right, Dean. We should start packing,” Sam said. “Besides, you can interrogate him on the ride all you want. If you’ve dealt with these things before, there’s no way you’re not coming with us, Cas.”

Cas nodded. “There are several Enochian symbols that worked well against them. Besides that, we usually just mauled them to death. I’m sure there are other methods, but our claws and fire are the only weapons I know of that were effective.”

It was definitely weird to hear Cas talking about mauling people to death. “Uh...Cas? Maybe you didn’t notice, but we don’t really have claws.”

Cas nodded at an angel blade that was laying on the map table. “You have mine.”

Dean picked up the angel blade and looked at the Enochian runes etched into its handle. Cas must have given them dozens of these over the years, even throughout the various stretches of time that he had been cut off from Heaven. Dean had never thought to ask where he was procuring them from. But that would explain it.

He had held these weapons, used them, cleaned them off more times than he could count. But for some reason it was different now, knowing that he was holding a bonafide part of an angel’s true form. Cas’s true form, to be exact. He suddenly felt the inexplicable urge to go wash his hands, hands that were currently grimy with gun oil and sweat. In an attempt to dispel the feeling, he chuckled and said, “Wish my toenail clippings were that useful. Wait--claws? You just got done telling us you were a snake.”

“Ancient serpents had feet, and evolved out of them. We actually have four, which was uncommon for serpents even in prehistoric times.”

“So, you look like, what, a Chinese dragon?”

“Oh, yes, some of us were stationed there, too.”

Sam huffed and said, “I’ll go get the bags.”

Dean started to walk off in the direction of his room to pack, but he turned back at the door to Castiel. “Hey, _Quetzalcoatl_. You know you have a Yu-Gi-Oh card, right?”

Cas frowned and gave his classic head tilt. “Yu-Gi-Oh?”

Sam barked out a laugh. “Sure, Dean. I was gonna mention that he has a pterodactyl species named after him, but kid’s playing cards work, too.”

* * *

Rolling along the highway in the Impala less than an hour later, Dean looked into the rearview mirror and met Cas’s eyes. “Don’t think you’ve gotten out of that explanation, buddy. You know, the one about where your species takes blood sacrifices? I mean, I knew angels were dicks, but…”

Dean could see Cas square his jaw. “I wish…” He paused and looked out the window, as if gathering himself to say something. “I wish you wouldn’t say that, Dean.”

Dean frowned, feeling a strange mix of surprise and embarrassment. He’d always called angels dicks. Hell, Cas had said on more than one occasion that he agreed with him. But it suddenly occurred to Dean that maybe it was only okay when Cas said it...and that maybe he agreed with Dean to alleviate some of the awkwardness of the insult. He bit his lip, but couldn’t bring himself to apologize for speaking the obvious truth. He could feel Sam’s disapproving gaze boring into the side of his head, though, so instead he said, “Sacrifices, Cas.”

Cas sighed. “Angels aren’t a species, you know.”

“What?”

“‘Angel’ is a job description. It’s a job that only celestial beings can hold. Demigods, seraphim, cherubim can all be angels--but many of us choose not to join the Lord’s army. There are a lot of freelancers, you could say.”

“And if Uncle Sam hasn’t roped you in, it’s an all you can eat buffet?” Dean knew it wasn’t really a joking matter--in fact, it made angels even more disturbing than they already were--but he found that the sarcasm made it easier to discuss, for some reason. “I thought you guys didn’t have to eat.”

“We don’t eat organic matter like you do.”

“Then--”

“Souls, Dean,” Sam cut in quietly. He turned back to Castiel. “You eat souls, don’t you? I mean, we already know they’re a source of power.” _And we already know you’ve filled up on them before,_ he left unsaid, but the knowledge hung in the air between the three of them.

Cas looked out the window and said after a while, “That’s what smiting is.”

“Huh. You know,” Sam said in his cheery ‘according to the lore’ voice, “in some ancient churches, the windows depict serpents devouring the wicked. Is that…?”

“Yes,” Cas said, not looking away from the window, “but we take a vow not to eat human souls the moment we join the Host. Unless on direct orders, of course.”

“Well you sure screwed that one up, didn’t you, buddy?” Dean chuckled mirthlessly. “How many people did you gobble up when you were God?” Oh shit, he’d gone and said it. He added, somewhat lamely, “Guess no one’s really missing the KKK, though. Did they taste good?”

“Dean!” Sam said, this time not even trying to be quiet or falsely cheerful.

“Sam, it’s okay,” Cas said quietly, and for some reason this just pissed Dean off more. Perhaps it was because he felt Cas shouldn’t have a say in whether or not Dean brought up his ill-fated turn at godhood a few years ago. But it was more than that. So much had been wrapped up in Cas’s quiet assurance to Sam, not the least of which was the fact that Sam and Cas had gotten close in the last few months, at the same time that they had started to obviously keep secrets from Dean himself. And Dean could pinpoint exactly when that behavior had started.

He lifted one hand off the steering wheel to scratch at the mark on his arm slightly, not missing Sam’s look of concern as he did so.

Eventually it was Cas who broke the silence. “I didn’t take sacrifices, obviously, but many did.”

* * *

**_Then_ **

Castiel looked out over the terrified villagers through Chimalma’s eyes.

 _Quetzalcoatl,_ she thought. _I am Quetzalcoatl to them._ It had been almost a millennium since she had regularly possessed Mary Magdalene as Yeshua’s liaison to Heaven and had been referred to by her Hebrew name. The language of these people had sounds very different to Hebrew, and so her name was different here, changed to fit to the sounds of that language. None of them were her true name. And yet she had come to be so accustomed to Castiel, it was hard not to think of herself as such.

It was strange, looking through a human’s eyes again after so many centuries. While she could still use the full range of her true senses, they seemed dimmed somehow, and her attention was most heavily drawn through the connection to her vessel’s brain and thereby body. So many colors, lost; whole dimensions, flattened. It amazed her that they could bear to live like this. She repositioned her wings and bent her head to get closer to the vessel and jerked it forward slightly. It stepped forward on wobbly legs, and the villagers gasped in horror.

 _Muscle memory, use the vessel’s memory,_ she chided herself. The cardinal rule of vessel possession. You’d think it was her first time.

There was only one human standing, one that approached her. She could smell that it was no less terrified than the rest of the humans, but it must have known her vessel in some way, because it kept calling it’s name.

“I am not your wife,” she said, once she scented that it was her vessel’s mate. “I am Quetzalcoatl.”

Unfortunately, this seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect on the human, for it began shrieking in a most unpleasant way and charged at her. Castiel had no time to make out the words it was yelling at her, and, unsure of what to do, whipped her tail around. Despite being in the heavenly dimension and thus invisible to the humans, her tail still effectively clotheslined her attacker and left him wheezing on the ground.

She pushed her vessel forward quickly, a hand outstretched to channel her power to heal him. How had she already made such a hash of this? But the human scurried away from her, still shrieking in anger at her. Castiel reached into the language centers of her new vessel’s brain to obtain the meaning of his words. As it turned out, he was rather displeased with the situation.

“Let her go! Let her go, you demon! Let her go!” The human struggled uselessly under the invisible weight of her tail, and Castiel belatedly realized that she was still pinning him. She lifted her tail and laid it down gently next to him. He popped up immediately, but seemed unsure of what to do with his newfound freedom. He couldn’t detect Castiel’s true form; all he could see was his mate, whom of course he couldn’t attack. Looking frustrated and confused, he let his balled fists drop uselessly to his sides.

Castiel opened the vessel’s mouth again and thought carefully about forming the words she wished to say--the human vocal apparatus was entirely too complicated and she was definitely out-of-practice. Her first order of business, she thought, was to set the record straight. “I am not a demon.” She detested when this word was misapplied to her. They had seen her true form--how could they mistake its glory for the twisted soul of a demon? But humans were a largely ignorant species when it came to the divine, especially when compared with other earthly species, and so she let it slide. “I am a celestial guardian. I am here to protect your people from storms, eruptions, and other disasters. I come in peace.” She held one of her vessel’s hands. Palm-out, in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture.

One by one, the rest of the humans were beginning to rise from their positions on the ground. One of the first to do so was an elderly male. It was this human that spoke to her now. “And what do you want in return?”

“Take me to your leader,” Castiel responded, realizing that if she didn’t get this out of the way she would have to repeat this introduction several times.

“I am the leader,” the man said, and after some thought Castiel managed to place the man’s body language as insulted. The downward turn of the mouth, the straightening and puffing of the chest, these were all indicators in a human of angry pride. She hastened to clarify her words.

“Not of your village. Of the city.”

“Um.” The man looked momentarily confused. “It’s a few hours to the north. You’re...welcome to walk there if you want.”

“I need a guide. You will come with me.”

If the man had any objections to this, he didn’t voice them. Castiel found people generally didn’t when she made a spectacular entrance.

At this moment her vessel’s mate cut in, saying, “I’m coming, too.” He looked terrified, but determined.

Castiel tilted her front-facing head in confusion, and her vessel’s head followed suit automatically. “That is appreciated, but unnecessary.”

“Not for you, you--” The man took a deep, steadying breath and continued more calmly, “If you’re taking my wife’s body, I’m coming with you. Why do you need her anyways?”

“As you have seen, it is difficult to communicate to humans with my true form and voice. And,” Castiel admitted, “it is difficult to fit into human spaces as well. I did not possess your mate without permission. I will return control of her body to her when I am finished communicating with your people.”

“Yeah? And how long’s that gonna take?”

“It will take longer if you continue asking foolish questions,” Castiel snapped, and the man grudgingly fell silent.

The village leader broke the tense silence that followed. “Well, we better get a move on if we want to make it there by dusk. It’s a long walk.”

Castiel huffed and, without another word, gripped both the leader and her vessel’s mate tightly in her forepaws and yanked her vessel back into her front mouth. With two powerful strokes of her wings, she lifted off the ground, leaving the rest of the villagers to stare in shock at the empty space where the three of them had been.

* * *

The moment Nochehuatl’s feet hit the ground, he propped his hands on his knees and vomited into the grass at his feet. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he straightened and glared at the creature that was wearing the beloved face of his wife. “What was that all about? Where are we?”

Instead of answering, Quetzalcoatl gazed past him. Nochehuatl turned to see the palace on the neighboring hill, gleaming in the midday sun. The bustle of the city and its dwellers surrounded it, and Nochehuatl could smell the unique mixture of street food and animals in close quarters even from here. He turned back to Quetzalcoatl. “Right. A little more warning next time?”

Quetzalcoatl again made no comment, but instead began walking stiffly towards the city. Nochehuatl rolled his eyes and helped pull a panting and trembling Tupac to his feet, and together they followed the creature down the hill.

Nochehuatl was not in the city often--only twice a year, really, for harvest and for spring trading. Every time he visited, he felt less a man of fifteen years and more a child again. It was truly magnificent. There were more people gathered in one place than Nochehuatl had ever known, wearing clothes that would take him a lifetime to afford. There were dozens of buildings smashed up together--how could people bear to live in such close quarters?--and there were traders everywhere you turned, selling jewelry, pottery, clothes, and even exotic creatures from lands Nochehuatl had never visited and most likely never would. Most magnificent of all, though, was, of course, the palace. Rising hundreds of feet above the melee, it stretched across the length of several courtyards and sported dozens of windows that presumably looked in on dozens of rooms. If one stood at the right angle, one could even make out one of the famed ballcourts from here.

But on this visit these spectacles did not earn even a passing glance from Nochehuatl. For now, his gaze was fixed on Chimalma’s back. On her patterned rose blouse that ducktailed out of her skirt in that adorable way--Nochehuatl was always having to fix it for her, usually stealing a kiss in the process. But now the gait was all wrong. The blank stare from those eyes--it was impossible not to see the serpentine monster that was even now puppeteering her body. And where was she? Where was the girl he had grown up next to? When their marriage had first been arranged, he had been wary and nervous around the exuberant and strange girl. But they had been incredibly lucky; or at least, he had been. For her excitable nature, which he had once seen as childish and off-putting, he had come to love as charismatic and adventurous. They had always said to him, “marry first, then love grows”. But he had hardly had to wait, for she had pulled him out of his guarded shell and into her vibrant world. And it had always been up to him to be her anchor.

But now he had failed. Her curiosity and daring had taken her too far, and he had not been able to ground her. He had cowered on the ground like one of the village dogs instead. And now she was trapped inside her own body, with that _thing._

They reached the great palace doors without Nochehuatl having been fully cognizant of the journey there. To his horror, Quetzalcoatl was speaking to one of the guards in that stilted way of his. Hers? He had no idea, and at this point he didn’t care, because the creature was at the very least making a fool of all of them.

“I am here to speak with the king,” she said, as if this were a completely reasonable request.

The guard blinked at her. Then he chuckled and turned to his partner. “She wants to speak to the king, do you hear that?”

The other guard raised an eyebrow and grinned at her with a hungry expression that made Nochehuatl very uncomfortable. “And what important information do you have for him, little girl? Whatever it is, we should probably hear it first, make sure it’s worth his time.”

Nochehuatl swallowed. If only the two idiots knew what they were taunting...he waited for the killing blow, for the serpent to re-materialize, spread its massive wings, and blow them off of the face of the world.

But Chimalma--Quetzalcoatl--did nothing of the kind. Instead, she tilted her head and said in that infuriatingly innocent tone of hers, “That will be unnecessary. I assure you what I say will be of import to him.”

Nochehuatl rolled his eyes and grabbed Chimalma’s forearm. Then he remembered who was in there, and dropped her arm as if stung. Gathering himself, he said instead to the guard. “I’m sorry, she’s confused. She’s very flighty, we were trying to get her home. We’re sorry to have bothered you.”

Quetzalcoatl turned to him briefly and said, “I am not confused.” She turned back to the guard and said, “Let us through.”

“Not until you tell us your ‘very important message’”, the second guard said, laughing now.

Despite her claims to the contrary, Quetzalcoatl looked even more confused, and for a moment Nochehuatl thought that she was going to begin relaying her little introduction-- “Be not afraid, I am a guardian”, etc., etc., but instead she just lifted one of Chimalma’s hands, palm outwards.

The great golden double doors suddenly blew open, almost off of their hinges. Through the dust and smoke Nochehuatl watched Quetzalcoatl stride right past the now prostrate guards and _enter the palace._

The palace. The home of the king. Nochehuatl hesitated for one moment (though he would vehemently deny the existence of such a moment to himself later) before following her into the mysterious edifice that had so captured his imagination as a child.

It exceeded his childhood imagination and more. Nochehuatl had to turn his head back to see the high ceiling. The statues adorning the sides of what he assumed was the throne room were incredibly ornate, sculpted with more detail than he could even make out. He did a double-take when he saw almost an exact likeness of the creature that he had seen in the forest, the creature that was now possessing the woman walking ahead of him. It seemed the creature itself did a double-take, and muttered something. _Baltazar,_ or something like that. But then it continued its walk towards the throne.

Nochehuatl was surprised to see that the king was absent from the ornate throne at the far end of the room, and then was surprised that he was surprised--obviously the king couldn’t just be sitting on the throne all day. Even the partly divine, he figured, must eat, and sleep, and make use of the numerous women he assumed were available to someone of this man’s station.

There was, however, someone in the great room: an elderly woman dressed in the garb of the priesthood. She glanced up slowly from her scribework as the three approached, and her rheumy eyes cleared with icy shock when she took in Quetzalcoatl. Nochehuatl could not imagine why she would be looking to Quetzalcoatl specifically as the cause of the blast, as to any outsider she still appeared to be an average, if not slightly stiff, fourteen-year-old farm woman. But the priestess got unsteadily to her feet, averting her eyes. When Quetzalcoatl came to a mere half-foot in front of her, she glanced up with her eyes without raising her bowed head. “Tezcatlipoca?” she asked, her voice low.

“No,” Quetzalcoatl said gravely. “An associate of his.”

“But--” the woman put a steadying hand on the table behind her, “we have already sacrificed three this season, is that not enough power to keep the fields fertile--?”

“I do not keep the fields fertile. Mine is a different area of expertise. As long as I am here, you will need fear no tempests.”

“What’s this about more sacrifices? And who in all the gods’ name destroyed my entrance?” an unpleasantly nasal voice came from a hallway opening lining the side of the room. Nochehuatl turned to see one of the most elaborate headdresses he had ever laid eyes on. Belatedly, he realized the headdress was being worn by someone, someone who was quite diminutive in comparison. Someone who was probably the king.

There was a commotion behind them; the cavernous hole in the wall had drawn many of the city slickers to stare in at the scene. Nochehuatl was getting more uncomfortable with this situation by the second.

Quetzalcoatl paid them no mind and turned imperiously towards the king, repeating her increasingly infuriating introduction for the fourth--or possibly fifth, Nochehuatl was losing count--time to the king.

The king reacted very much like the guards, complete with a couple of suggestive comments that made Nochehuatl bristle. But the priestess was shaking her head guardedly behind Quetzalcoatl, and now the priestess and the king were sharing some sort of silent communication that was of course going completely over all of Quetzalcoatl’s heads. And then the king said, snidely, “Very well, Serpent. If you truly were the creature that caused that storm to cease, prove it to me.”

Nochehuatl gestured weakly to the crumbling fragments of stone, the remains of the king’s once magnificent front entrance. And the priestess actually facepalmed.

Quetzalcoatl simply studied him cooly, and then the bright fire of the monstrosity that Nochehuatl had glimpsed in the forest flashed all around them. The telltale clap of thunder they had heard as it had flown over the hills rumbled through the mostly empty throne room.

And then the creature’s wings were unfolding and arching over Chimalma’s head.

Not its real wings--not the impossibly massive lime green and fiery gold that Nochehuatl had seen in the forest. But impressive shadows to be sure. And then the creature followed it up by somehow displaying a shadow of its serpentine body, coiled behind Chimalma in a way that Nochehuatl found quite threatening.

There was a clattering sound from the city folk, and Nochehuatl assumed that many of them have dropped to their knees, maybe with some forehead ground contact to boot. But he couldn’t tear his eyes from Chimalma, and the shadow of the monster that puppeted her.

The king did not drop to his knees, but he did seem at a loss for words, which Nochehuatl gathered from the few minutes he’d seen him was a rather rare occurrence. The priestess, however, strolled forward, seemingly having regained her confidence. It occured to Nochehuatl that she, as a liaison to the divine, may in fact be able to see the creature’s true form, and had had the last few minutes to become accustomed to it.

“You were responsible for the disappearance of the hurricane?” she asked, her voice low and shaky with age, but unafraid.

Quetzalcoatl met her gaze and gave a slow nod.

“And you will continue to stop them?”

“It is my duty.”

“And what are your specific tastes? Children? Virgins?”

Quetzalcoatl simply continued to gaze at her, and then slowly tilted Chimalma’s head and squinted her eyes.

The priestess continued, “Three surrounding villages were destroyed last year during this season. Dozens of lives were lost. If you require sustenance to keep the storms at bay, we will provide them. What are your preferences?”

“I require no sacrifices,” Quetzalcoatl finally said. “All I that I require, my Father Itzamná provides.”

The priestess opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “But you must require sacrifices. All the rest do.”

By this time several of the city folk were approaching tentatively, a few on their hands and knees, eyes averted. Some were beginning to lay small tokens at Chimalma’s petite feet; fruit, clothes, jewelry. Quetzalcoatl looked down at the gifts, and her head tilted so far to the side that it was practically laying against her neck. Nochehuatl could almost see the movements of the feathered creature behind Chimalma’s newly acquired body language.

“They’re um...they’re just grateful you stopped the storm,” Nochehuatl explained lamely.

Quetzalcoatl squinted and straightened her head. “I do not require sacrifices,” she repeated.

“Look, you, um--” Despite himself, Nochehuatl found himself grabbing his wife’s upper forearm and pulling the creature a little out of earshot. Quetzalcoatl let herself be pulled; Nochehuatl was under no illusion that he could have moved her if she hadn’t wanted it. “Look, whatever you are, I don’t know why you don’t take sacrifices. And believe me, I’m not complaining. But, you know, you just gotta let them give you something. Because us humans, we have this thing called bartering. It’s where we offer people things for services rendered. Nobody trusts someone who does something for free. So, I don’t know, how about you just pick something else for them to show their gratitude with? Preferably something that doesn’t involve human victims, that was a first rate idea you had there, I thought.”

Quetzalcoatl frowned and plucked at Chimalma’s floral-patterned blouse. “Well, um, I like flowers,” she said.

“Flowers?” Nochehuatl repeated, sure he had heard that wrong.

“Flowers,” she confirmed. “They didn’t evolve all that long ago, really. Not that long before the great lizards went extinct. We were all so taken by them when they first began to appear; they have to be one of Father’s loveliest inventions. Oh, and they draw such wonderful, hard-working creatures. Like butterflies, and bees.”

Nochehuatl wasn’t sure what all that nonsense about “great lizards” and “evolving” was. He also wasn’t sure how he had woken up this morning a simple farmer, and was now speaking with a terrifying ancient being controlling his wife’s body about flowers and butterflies. But as this was apparently his life now, he simply said. “Sure. Flowers and butterflies. Go for it.”

To Nochehuatl’s surprise, Quetzalcoatl gave him a brief smile that came over more as a grimace (it looked like she was trying the expression on for the first time) and turned to the priestess. She said, her voice once again taking on that stilted, commanding tone, “I don’t require sacrifices, but if you are inspired to present offerings to me, I will accept flowers. And butterflies.”

She paused, then said, “But that is not why I came here. I came here to inform you that I will be nesting in the mountains to the West throughout this season each year for the foreseeable future, and to not be alarmed if you see me during storms; again, I am the destroyer of storms--I do not cause them. I will leave each fall equinox and descend upon the spring equinox.”

Nochehuatl’s heart sank at this information, for he could see it now--this creature, this “benevolent” monster, would return each year to their city. And each year it would need a mouthpiece. The creature claimed it took no sacrifices--but there would be at least one sacrifice, over and over again every year. And the victim would be poor Chimalma.

“Um,” the king said, and then closed his mouth. He cleared his throat and then tried again, his voice cracking in a pretty hilarious way on the first word. “Would you--would you like to stay for dinner? The uh, the chef will be preparing mole tonight I think, and there will be cocoa.”

Quetzalcoatl tilted her head again in a way that was increasingly getting on Nochehuatl’s nerves. “I do not require organic sustenance.”

“Right, right,” the king said hurriedly. “Of course you don’t.”

Quetzalcoatl looked then towards the statue of the feathered serpent that stood guard to the throne among the other statues. “Who is that?” she asked without preamble.

“What?” The king said, clearly befuddled by her abrupt change in topic. Then he amended, “I meant, what, ma’am?”

“That. The Serpent. Who is it a likeness of?”

“Uh,” the king said, but the priestess jumped in with “Tezcatlipoca. He is a god of the southern cities.”

Quetzalcoatl nodded. Then, without any warning at all, she opened her mouth. She practically unhinged it, and a streamer of blazing blue shot out of it. The streamer grew in size until it was the unmistakable shape of a serpent. Three bright shapes unfurled from either side of it and, before Nochehuatl could even register what was happening, it shot through one of the wide, airy windows behind the dais upon which the throne sat.

Chimalma crumpled to the ground.

Nochehuatl ran over and pulled her up by her shoulders so that her head was laying in his lap. Her dark hair, frizzy with humidity, puffed out around her, haloing her face. Her expression was peaceful. Too peaceful.

“Chima?” Nochehuatl said, his voice warbling uncontrollably. “Chimalma? Are you alright?”

Her eyes flicked open so abruptly that Nochehuatl jumped slightly, and her head fell out of his lap to crack against the floor once again. But it didn’t seem to faze her. She gulped in a huge breath and scrambled to her feet.

“That was...that was…” she panted. Her dark eyes were glazed over, staring at some unseen horror that Nochehuatl could only guess at.

“Amazing,” she breathed at last. “Noche, it, it, I was flying on a star.” Her eyes focused again and she seemed to finally take in her surroundings. She frowned, and Nochehuatl prepared to explain to her just what had happened while she was having what apparently was an extreme sweat lodge experience. But instead of asking where she was, she said, “Where is she?”

But Quetzalcoatl was long gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! I just landed my dream job, got a new apartment, and had a friend visit--and honestly I'm unfortunately a slow writer.
> 
> Anyways, Quetzalcoatl was one of the few gods that didn't take sacrifices, but that actually varies a bit story to story. And his wind aspect, which I guess I'm going for here (Cas being a divine storm chaser and all) actually did take a lot of sacrifices, but again, I've had to take some (and by some I mean a lot) of artistic license for the sake of plot. I'm also not going to name a specific city-state or king here, because then my historical accuracy problems will increase tenfold, so--fictional city, fictional king.
> 
> I got the idea that "angel" describes an occupation rather than an actual species right off of Professor Wikipedia. And the "angel blades are angel claws" headcanon I borrowed from NorthernSparrow, as I'm sure some people recognized. On the slim chance that you haven't read NorthernSparrow's works, go read all of it right now.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	3. The Twin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean takes Cas sightseeing; Quetzalcoatl sees a familiar face.

The drive took all day, and most of it was through the Lone Star State. All in all, it would have been a pretty boring drive. They stopped a few times, and Dean delighted in introducing Cas to Buc-ee’s (even though he only ordered coffee), but for the most part it was pretty routine.

Or it would have been, if Cas hadn’t been giving them the low-down on his past as a Mesoamerican god which he had _never bothered to mention before_.

Although, to be fair, neither Dean nor Sam had ever asked him. And from the sound of it, Cas didn’t even seem to think it was all that important--just a routine project from headquarters, a run-of-the-mill deployment.

It was a little odd hearing about a Castiel that existed before Dean. Which was, of course, ridiculous--intellectually Dean knew he was ancient. And apparently Cas had existed even before flowers, and possibly dinosaurs. But Cas was _theirs_. Their angel.

My _angel_ , he thought.

He had always known that they were just a sliver in Cas’s immensely long life. But it was jolting to hear about it just the same.

“So,” Dean found himself joking as Sam left for the restrooms, “Flowers and butterflies, really, Cas?”

Cas took a sip of his coffee, then pulled a face. “They advertised this as Guatemalan coffee. This is nothing like Guatemalan coffee.”

“Not fit for the gods, huh?”

Dean had meant it as a joke, but Cas said seriously, “Most definitely not.” He proceeded to take another large gulp anyways. “What’s wrong with flowers and butterflies?”

Dean chuckled. “I mean, I always knew you were a big girl but--well, I guess you really were a girl back then, weren’t you?”

“I was an angel, possessing a woman.”

“Possessing a girl. What is it with you and being in underage girls, anyways?” A few of the nearest diners looked askance at them at these words, but Dean ignored them.

“I wasn’t--” Cas looked frustrated. “That wasn’t considered underage back then. I didn’t realize the definition had changed, back when I possessed Claire.” He looked up at Dean. “I really didn’t.”

Dean was surprised at the almost pleading tone in Cas’s voice. “I believe you. You had to do what you had to do.”

Cas glanced at him and then looked back out the window. The darkness beyond meant that only their reflections and the reflection of the diner would be visible, but Dean wondered if Cas could see beyond it. He said, his voice taking on a distant tone, “Things were different back then. People believed. It was truly considered an honor to be a vessel. I just didn’t realize…”

“Claire will be okay, you know. She’s got Jody.”

Cas gave him a look. Dean sighed; Jody didn’t change what had happened to Claire over the last several years. And Jody didn’t change what had happened to Jimmy.

Cas said, “The relationship between an angel and their vessel is a sacred one. I think we have forgotten that, in recent years. When you take a vessel, you make a pact with them, in a way--you will protect their family, you will protect their health. And sometimes, if you did that, you were even lucky enough to have--some of them even liked you. You know, the concept of a guardian angel on your shoulder, it’s funny--it’s really the other way around. Navigating the customs of whatever species, whatever culture your vessel belongs to, it’s so...tiring. And if you got along well with your vessel, they could help you. They could be the voice in your head.”

“Guess Jimmy wasn’t all that interested in the male bonding, huh?”

Cas squinted at him in confusion, but continued, “Jimmy hated me.” He said it so blandly, as if it was simply a truth, neither here nor there.

Dean frowned. “That must have sucked.”

Cas nodded. “It did indeed ‘suck’.”

Dean said, “I bet you miss the good ole days. Must have been nice, being worshipped.”

Cas set his coffee cup down. “Being worshipped did have its benefits,” he said mildly, “but that’s not really what I miss.”

Dean was about to ask Cas what he did miss when Sam returned from the restroom. Cas rose from the table before he could get his question out, and within five minutes they were on the road again.

* * *

About forty-five minutes out of Dallas, though, Dean was seized by an idea. When he veered off at the appropriate exit (he thought he was remembering it correctly, at least) Sam frowned at him. “You getting low on gas? I thought you filled up when we stopped.”

“Nope,” Dean said with a half-grin. “There’s just a tourist trap I wanna stop at. It’s a must-see if you’re road-tripping through Texas.”

“Dean, there are people dying,” Sam said doubtfully.

“Just a quick stop, I promise. Forty-five minutes, tops.”

Sam opened his mouth, presumably to argue more, but then saw the signs that started to pop up along the side of the road and grinned at Dean. “Yeah, forty-five minutes sounds good.”

Gradually, the green fields that flew past the windows turned into a blue-indigo blur. Dean’s smile widened when he heard Cas make a noise, half-surprise and half-appreciation, from the back seat.

“You ever see bluebonnets, Cas?” Dean asked, glancing in the rear view mirror.

“It’s been a long time since I saw this many,” he said, looking wistfully out the window.

They stopped in a small tourist parking area, and Cas clambered out even before Dean had fully pulled the car to a stop. “Whoa, whoa, easy there,” Dean said, laughing. He got out to stand beside Cas, who was gazing out over the fields with an awed expression. “I know it’s probably nothing next to all the goodies you got back then,” he said. “But if you like flowers, this is the place to be.”

Cas began walking slowly out into the field, his steps almost reverent, as if determined not to crush a single bloom. It occurred to Dean that maybe he was used to being careful not to crush things. He recalled something that Sam had relayed to him, something that Ruby had told Sam right around the time that Castiel had first resurrected Dean. “The sky bleeds and the ground shakes in their presence,” she had said to him.

The sky bleeds and the ground shakes.

It was strange, to think how powerful the angels had seemed back then. How powerful Cas had seemed, back when Cas was “Castiel, Angel of the Lord” and not Cas, Dean’s friend.

And it was stranger still to think of what was even now hiding behind that vessel. It was so easy to forget that however weakened, those Old Testament descriptions that Sam, Dean, and Bobby had gone through in the days after Cas first introduced himself still did apply to him.

Now, watching Cas and the abnormal intensity with which he studied the flowers, Dean wondered whether that tendency to forget his friend’s true nature was somewhat intentional.

Sam leaned up against the car next to Dean, watching him watching Cas. “Any particular reason you wanted to make this stop?” he asked, the hint of a smile in his voice.

“No reason,” Dean said, scraping the toe of one of his boots into the damp ground. “Cas said he likes flowers, thought he might want to see some. Not like there are any worshippers offering them to him anymore.”

Sam huffed a laugh. “Yeah, bet he misses it. But, uh, no offense--you don’t usually go in for the ‘nice gestures to friends’ thing.”

“You mean chick flick moments?”

“Hey, you said it.”

Dean sighed. “He gave up an army for me. Never really thanked him.”

“Thanked him for not killing you?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah. But, you know, there’s been other stuff. Cas and I--I guess the last couple of years have had some rocky moments.”

Sam gave a brief nod. They both knew what he was talking about, but Sam had the grace not to go any further into that topic. He sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to break this up,” he said reluctantly. “There’s been another death, in Webster this time. Same description. Chest hollowed out, charred. Victim was eight years old.”

Dean nodded. “Hey, Cas?” he called, but Cas was already walking towards him.

“I heard. Let’s go. Dean,” he said, looking at Dean solemnly, “thank you.”

“No problem, Cas. You gonna take any with you?”

“Pretty sure it’s illegal,” Sam said just as Cas said, looking mildly horrified, “Why would anybody pick them?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright. Jeez, I had an idea Sam was a hippie with his hair and all, but, really, Cas?”

Cas tilted his head. “Hippie?”

“Never mind,” Dean said, smiling as he fell into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

* * *

**_Then_ **

Rain pelted across Castiel’s faces and wings as he darted through the angry clouds. The water fell in rivulets down his oil-slicked feathers, gathering in large droplets that the wind then whisked away. A hot jet of fire here, a cool streamer of grace there--Castiel felt the thrum of contented excitement as he fell into the storm dissipation patterns he had repped for eons. This was where he belonged, thousands of feet in the air, manipulating the air currents, feeling the power and grace run through his muscles, right from nose to tail, the rhythmic beat of wings, the sweet high of overexertion. He trumpeted out his joy, his Voice only just audible over a sudden loud clap of thunder. He sang out his gratitude to his Father for creating him, for giving him storms to chase and wings with which to chase them.

It wasn’t a hurricane--it was too early in the season for that. It was just a rather violent tropical storm that managed to occupy the sweet spot between being minor enough for Castiel to handle but not too minor as to be utterly boring. He had been on his way to the city he was stationed in, returning as promised on the spring equinox, and had happened to see it brewing a few hundred miles away. It had occurred to him that he might be stalling on meeting the king again, but the storm was rather large, and he knew who was stationed in the area--Muriel would have never been able to handle it on her own. And the king’s voice was so very annoying…

He almost felt a little disappointed as the clouds noticeably began to lighten, and the barometric pressure lowered. He wheeled around to reluctantly make his way southwest when he spotted Muriel making her way towards him from a few dozen miles away.

“Thanks for that,” she huffed when she was within earshot.

Castiel gave a noncommittal growl of acknowledgement. Muriel fell into formation slightly back and to the left of him. She seemed to grow uneasy with the silence eventually, for she said, “I’m sorry, I’m still so new at this. I promise I will improve.”

Castiel searched for something to say back; he had never really been good at pep talks. “Yes, you will,” he finally responded. Then he realized that might sound gruff, and he added, “A new role always takes some time to adjust to. Just two thousand years ago you were a Healer. Don’t be surprised if it takes a few more millennia to grow accustomed to atmospheric manipulation.”

Muriel ducked her heads in respect and said, “I’ll return to my post now, sir. Thank you again for your assistance.”

Castiel thought of calling her back for a moment--anything to delay the inevitable--but then decided against it. With a rapid beat of his wings, he sped up, now determined to finish the courtesy call as quickly as possible so that he could return to the mountains for what was, in his opinion at least, a well-deserved rest.

As he crested the last hill before his delegated city, though, he could tell that something was a little different.

At first he couldn’t place a talon on what it was, though. The city looked much the same as ever--the buildings were in the same place, the surrounding fields were intact, and the palace was just as gaudy as last time. But it seemed that the city itself was moving, somehow. Castiel blinked his eyes, even pushing his front wing pair forward to get a closer look with the eyes there. It was then that he realized what the difference was.

The city was positively crawling with humans.

It was an odd and slightly unnerving visual effect--Castiel had only seen so many humans congregated in one place before a couple of times, one of them being the day Yeshua had ridden into Jerusalem. And of course that had been a Holy Day. A Holy Week, really. Were the humans celebrating, then?

And if they were, then what were they celebrating?

Castiel shook himself. Watching the scene was starting to give him an uncomfortable crawling feeling under his feathers. Perhaps when he took a vessel and was at level with them it wouldn’t be quite as disturbing.

But that meant he had to locate a vessel. He had already decided to go with the old tried and true method of landing in the middle of a throng of people and speaking with his True Voice until someone decided to lend theirs instead.

When he flew over the city, it was low, his underbelly almost scraping the tip of the palace, his wingtips beating the surrounding fields a few times. Screams, humans dropping to the ground, that was to be expected.

And indeed many of the humans did scream. But instead of dropping to the ground, they laughed, they waved. Some even clapped, that strange yet nearly universal sign of human glee, smacking their hands together over and over.

Castiel landed in the field across from the palace, coiling tight so as to keep from crushing any humans that might be working there. This proved unnecessary, however--it seemed that every single soul, even those from the surrounding farming villages, was stuffed into the city center. He extended his necks over the city, straining to reach the palace. This truly was a massive city--even at full length he could not quite touch nose to the gleaming building.

More cheers. To say Castiel was confused would have been an understatement--never before had his presence in _irqaaol_ , in anything resembling his true form, elicited such a positive reaction. Now he was unsure of how to proceed. How could he possibly speak in his True Voice in front of all these unsuspecting humans? He would probably cause at least a few of them to go deaf. Not only would Anna never forgive him for such a disaster, but he would never forgive himself.

Fortunately he was spared the decision when the double doors to the palace (which had been restored since last season, he noted) were opened slowly by the two guards who had hindered him before. The king stepped out gravely, his nose turned skyward, his massive headdress wobbling slightly with each step. Castiel steeled himself for the nasally voice to begin its pontifications. But instead the king stepped aside, almost reverently, and a flurry of butterflies of all shapes and colors flocked through the doors.

Castiel found himself quite embarrassingly chirping in delight, and swung all of his faces forward to nose at the little creatures. They landed on his snout, the horns of his rear head, his wings, his eyes, fluttering lazily in the afternoon sun. He let his eyes fall closed for a moment, basking in the ticklish sensation of their tiny wings beating against his own. Then he opened them again to see another figure walk through the door.

He almost didn’t recognize last season’s vessel--was this truly the farmgirl he had possessed less than a year ago? Of course, he recognized the modifications he had made himself. Small scars had been eliminated, her failing immune system had been repaired, the curve of her corneas had been adjusted. _Leave the vessel better than you found it_ , Benjamin had always said. But this creature, this could not be Chimalma. She was older, of course (humans grew so rapidly at that age). But she was also well-fed and well-groomed. Her ribs were no longer visible, the fur on her head was unknotted, and even the dirt beneath her nails was gone. And, best of all in Castiel’s opinion, her head fur was woven with flowers.

The meaning of the gesture was obvious. She was his vessel to take. And although it was polite to ask for permission again when repossessing a vessel, it was not necessary. A single invitation was a permanent one.

But of course he would ask anyway.

He leaned forward until his front head was but a few feet from her face, twisting to look at her around his snout. “Do I have permission to repossess you this season?”

The human looked up at him with wide, dark eyes, and suddenly she seemed so very young. Barely more than a fledgling. She radiated excitement, but Castiel couldn’t tell whether that excitement was born of eagerness or fear. Probably both. But she bowed her head shakily and whispered, “Yes.”

To be honest, Castiel wasn’t sure whether her repeated consent was truly her choice; with the performance the city had put on for his arrival, he had to assume that there was at least some pressure put on her by authorities. But it was rare to get a second consent, and he wasn’t going to squander that. Besides, they had worked well together last year. Some vessels were so overwhelmed that Castiel had to instantly throw them into subconsciousness, most ended up hating him to at least some degree--to have a vessel that had at least found the experience intriguing as he sensed she had was a precious thing.

He opened his mouth, reached out to her with his trumpets…

And once again he looked out at the world through the eyes of a human.

As she squinted her eyes against the changed scenery, a dark shape obscured her vision. It took a few blinks to realize it was the king. He bowed low; Castiel was surprised, but pleased, by his newfound respect.

“We are honored to have you among us, Quetzalcoatl,” he intoned gravely, his eyes not leaving the ground.

Castiel brushed past him, searching for the one person she felt she had to speak to upon her return. It only occurred to her after she was halfway down the steps that the king had probably expected a response, as humans often did even when no question was asked. She paused to look back at him. She caught him glaring at her, his mouth pinched in annoyance. As her vessel’s eyes met his, though, he glanced back down quickly.

“Quetzal!” a familiar voice called. Castiel turned to see Nochehuatl--just who she had been looking for. She approached him.

“Quetzal?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna pronounce your full name all the damn time.” His arms were crossed, he leaned against the wall of the temple with a surly expression.

“Ah, so it is a shortening of my name? Chimalma calls you Noche. Is that how I should refer to you?”

Nochehuatl scowled. “Chimalma calls me that. Not you. I’m Nochehuatl to you.”

Castiel relayed no emotion onto the face of her vessel, but in the dimension next door she huffed in exasperation. It looked to be another long season of dealing with snide remarks and barely concealed animosity from her vessel’s mate, or husband, or whatever they called it. Castiel had done her level best to return Chimalma to her home as often as she could last year, only taking Chimalma when she had to interact with humans and occasionally while dissipating storms or working with other seraphim on Earth. Nochehuatl had no idea how good he had it--during most of Castiel’s previous possessions there had been no way of explaining the situation to the vessel’s family or letting them return to their home during hiatuses between missions. What could he possibly have to complain about?

 _Don’t be too hard on him_ , Chimalma piped up.

Castiel was taken off guard--last time it had taken Chimalma much longer to gain enough focus to communicate with her. _I have saved your village from destruction at least three times by now. He should show me some respect._

_He knows. That’s why he’s simply being rude instead of attacking you._

This time Castiel couldn’t suppress a condescending frown. _He could try._ She paused. _What angers him so?_

Chimalma hesitated, and Castiel could practically hear her debating her next words. _I have no problems hosting you. It’s an honor, of course. But...you have disrupted our lives._

_How so?_

Chimalma paused again. At that point, a syncopated rhythm started up from a group of humans congregated at the base of the temple. Chimalma thought quickly, _It doesn’t matter. We can discuss this later._ Castiel was perturbed by the exchange but put it aside in favor of investigating the instruments the humans were playing.

It was quite fascinating, really, how humans developed their instruments independently and yet all came up with similar designs. Humans _loved_ to bang on things, Castiel had found. It must be hardwired into their nature, for there was not a single culture in a single location--from the iciest climes to the arid deserts of the great landmass across the ocean--that did not have at least one instrument designed for beating. This culture was no different in that respect--a few tall drums sat in the center of the musical group, and it was these drums that were providing the lovely rhythm.

But far more interesting to Castiel were the long, conical tubes of wood that seemed to end in some kind of gourd. The musician had his lips pursed tightly to the end of it, blowing air in a steady stream. The instrument produced a full, buzzing sound. While she had seen many human instruments that involved the player blowing air through some sort of wooden tube, there was something different about this one, about its flared shape. It would have reminded her of her own trumpets, except hers produced a much rounder, brassy sound in comparison. But it did make her wonder. Seraphim had been posted on Earth more and more over recent millenia. Could it be that humans were beginning to find ways to imitate them?

Castiel noticed that she had begun to roll her body and flap her wings in little jerks to the music, and abruptly stopped herself, abashed. Then she remembered that no one could see her true body, no one here at least. She let herself begin to dance again with greater fervor, bobbing her heads and letting her feather crests flare out dramatically.

She continued in some time this way, almost forgetting the world around her, until she spotted the priestess watching her. Not her vessel--her. And she was grinning. Castiel’s wings tightened to her side in embarrassment as she suddenly remembered that the priestess could most likely see her true form. She turned her faces away, staring at the glyphs on the palace foundations.

A light touch to her flank, her true form, made her turn back. The priestess had an old, gnarled hand against the soft feathers on her side. She was gazing into the eyes along her lower wing. It occurred to Castiel that to anyone else it would look as if the old woman was raising a hand in the air and staring at nothingness. If this struck anyone as strange, though, they didn’t react as such--most likely they were used to the priestess’s odd antics and took it in stride.

“You like the music?” The priestess asked, smiling.

Castiel inclined her avian side head at the priestess. The priestess’s smile widened. “They composed all of these pieces for you, you know. They would be honored to know you enjoyed their gift.”

Castiel was taken aback. She was used to being respected by humans, but more often than not it was out of fear and awe. She sensed those feelings in this space as well, of course. But there was a sense of deep gratitude here that was wholly unfamiliar to her, a gratitude that was quite moving.

She nodded, this time with her vessel’s head, and the priestess switched seamlessly to interacting with her vessel instead of her true form. She gestured towards the group of musicians.

As Castiel approached the band, the music died away, and all of the players fell into a deep bow. Castiel turned to the trumpet player. “Would you show me how to play that instrument?”

The player looked to both sides, then pointed at himself, mouthing, “Me?” Castiel nodded, and he walked up to her, still slightly bowed.

The next few hours passed in a whirlwind of music, dancing, and tasting the local cuisine. There were various speeches, too, given in Castiel’s honor, which were always inevitably followed by more dancing. Many of the dancers wore costumes resplendent with plumage from various local birds, with swaths of feather-covered cloth stretching from arm to hip in an imitation of wings, and great headdresses adorned with long feathers that made them resemble a flared feather crest. Castiel realized with a start that all of the feathers were in various shades of green, red, and gold. It was suddenly clear that the costumes were designed to imitate her. Her feathers puffed up in delight. To think that they had put this all on--for her! Many seraphim in the private sector could boast of such worship, but few angels had the chance to become so connected to a community as to garner this amount of praise. It was absolutely adorable, and in its own strange way quite humbling.

It must have been around midnight when a sudden hush fell over the festivities. Castiel couldn’t be entirely sure, though--she had to admit that by this time she had been plied with an absolutely absurd amount of balché, barrels of it, and she was no longer able to think entirely clearly. She glanced around blearily for some reason for the abrupt change.

Suddenly, a wail rent the air apart.

Castiel spun around. A man was being dragged out of the doors of the temple, screaming and thrashing. Behind him, a woman was being similarly dragged, but she wasn’t fighting. Her eyes stared glassily off into the distance, and a single tear track ran down her face. Both were impeccably cleaned and ornately dressed. In some ways, the scene reminded Castiel of Chimalma earlier that day, being offered to her so plainly. But this was darker, something was wrong, something was twisted--Chimalma had been scared, but this? This was sheer terror.

Castiel yanked her vessel up to the temple, landing lightly on the top step. The two guards were chanting now around a fire pit laden with different colored candles and herbs, still gripping the two prisoners by the arms.

“What’s happening here?” Castiel cried, racing over to the scene.

The guards stopped abruptly. One of them turned to her. “All respect to you, Quetzalcoatl, but you should not be troubled with this. Please, return to the festivities. We will try to disturb your celebration as little as possible.”

Castiel scowled and grabbed one of the guards by the cuff of his tunic. “You will not dismiss me as you did last year. What is happening here? You will unhand these humans!”

The guard’s face froze in a rictus of fear, and he did indeed drop his prisoner, but the prisoner looked too shocked and confused to do anything but stare mutely at Castiel.

Rough panting came from behind her, and she turned to see the priestess laboriously mounting the top temple step. “Quetzalcoatl, your honor,” she wheezed, “please trust us. This is none of your concern--but it is something we have to do. You are welcome to watch if you wish, of course.” She held Castiel’s gaze for a long time. It was Castiel who finally looked away, her vessel’s eyes landing on the prisoners, who were both once again in the guards’ clutches.

Castiel hesitated. It was against the code of the Heavenly Host to interfere with mortal customs, yes, but how could she just watch whatever terrible human barbarism was obviously about to transpire? Just watch, and then rejoin the festivities down below as if nothing had happened? Of course, she had been corrected for violating that directive before. Multiple times in fact. She _could_ always do it again, by this point it was clear she wouldn’t be dishonorably discharged from the Host just for a small interference. But the correction room--Castiel shuddered to remember it. A fleeting memory of wings pinned to the side of a Martian cliff face by her own broken off claws, chunks torn from her sides, the silver grace dripping down the correctional officer’s fangs, caused Castiel to reconsider. Finally, she turned away, ceding to the priestess.

The priestess stepped forward and continued the chant, and for the first time Castiel actually listened to the words. It was a prayer, much like the ones that had been sent to Castiel herself just days before her arrival. But this time, the name the priestess was calling out was that of Tezcatlipoca.

And suddenly Castiel understood what was about to happen.

The tropical nighttime sky was unseasonably devoid of clouds due to Castiel’s own exploit earlier that day, and every star could be seen in utter clarity, clustered in the inky sky. Trillions of miles apart from each other, many of them nevertheless gave the illusion of touching, huddling together in little families. Some of the closest ones Castiel had even had the pleasure of visiting herself, the ones within a few hundred light years (after all, she could only fly at the speed of light, and no one wanted to spend more than a couple of hundred years on a round trip). She’d even been assigned missions to some of the civilizations orbiting those stars.

Every single one was blotted out now.

It was always odd, seeing another seraph from the vantage point of a tiny human. It was hard to appreciate how incomprehensibly massive they must seem to any mortal creature except through the eyes of one’s vessel. Now, through Chimalma’s eyes, Castiel tried to take in the wings, the tail that stretched beyond the horizon, the giant snout on each giant head--

Just as with Castiel’s arrival, the humans didn’t cower. But neither did they cheer. They simply gazed up, many of them with expressions bordering on resignation. Resignation and even grief.

The seraph landed in a heap of silver and black feathers in the center of the city, demolishing a couple of buildings that were miraculously empty with its left hind paw. It reared its heads back and surveyed the scene on the temple steps. The priestess met two of its eyes with a steady gaze, never breaking her prayer. The guards pushed their prisoners forward and stepped aside.

“No, please, please--” the man begged, not even bothering to attempt an escape. The woman remained silent, closing her eyes and tipping her head back.

The seraph opened its front mouth, snaking its trumpets out towards the prisoners. From Castiel’s human vantage point the depths of the tubes seemed to stretch on forever, into some deep unseen abyss. A sharp gust of wind whipped past her and the very air around them split apart as the seraph began sucking inward. Slowly, very slowly, two thin, shining streamers of brilliant blue pulled out of the prisoners’ mouths. They seemed reluctant to leave their host behind--every inch of soul peeled from the body was hard-won. But eventually they were free, and at that point they spun quickly towards the depths of the seraph’s mouth, gliding up the tubes and out of sight.

The man had stopped screaming. There was no one to scream anymore. No one to care.

The man and woman looked dazed, but otherwise unharmed. But Castiel knew better. No soul resided in those two bodies any longer. They were husks--animated husks, still capable of talking and reasoning, but husks just the same. Whoever the prisoners had been, they were now just another stream of divine power at the seraph’s disposal, soon to be burned up in whatever miracle the seraph next performed.

It had been at least a hundred million years since Castiel had smote the soul of a sentient mortal, a hundred million years since she had taken the vows of the Host. But occasionally she was reminded of how good the mortal soul had tasted--how filling it was, the sudden burst of power that would run through the veins afterwards. She tried to avoid watching whenever she could--why tempt herself?

The seraph shook its feathers out, settling the new power into its wings, and finally gave Castiel a cursory glance. Then it did a double-take. “Castiel?”

Castiel frowned and studied the panther-like front face of the newcomer for the first time.

“Balthazar?”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the lag! I just started my new dream job and I'm still in the crazy "I don't understand anything" phase! I promise I'll settle into a routine soon and write more regularly. That's what I get for starting a new fic right before a new job...
> 
> Anyways, so Balthazar is in the mix now! And he is unfortunately not a vegetarian when it comes to souls:) The plot in the present will start picking up soon too. Thank you all for sticking with me through the hiatus!
> 
> Edit: Also sorry about the missing paragraphs. They've been added now!


	4. Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will visit the coroner; Quetzalcoatl reunites with an old friend.

Sam turned to face Cas as Dean pulled into the motel parking lot. “.Jeez, Balthazar took sacrifices?”

“I mean, he was kinda doing that when we first met him, remember?” Dean said, killing the engine. “He bought that kid’s soul. I mean what did you think he was gonna do with it?”

“But you two worked together? I mean, did you try to stop him?” Sam asked Cas.

Cas frowned as if that were a ridiculous question. “No I didn’t try to stop him.”

“You didn’t try to--” Dean shook his head incredulously. “Why the hell didn’t you?”

“You know, Dean,” Cas continued in that patient but confused tone of his, “You’ve always said that vegetarians who attempt to foist their views on their friends ought have a culinary implement inserted in their--”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean cut him off. “Guess I did say that. So you weren’t the type to tell people that you could hear their lunch screaming.”

Cas cocked his head. “Lunches scream?”

“Never mind.”

They walked to the lobby together, filing in out of the damp heat into a room that was only slightly more comfortable. The ancient conditioning unit attached to the small window next to the reception desk whined and emitted ominous clunking noises at irregular intervals. When the chime above the front door rang, a plump, thirty-something woman looked up from the desktop and plastered a customer service smile on her face.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

“We’d like to check out a room,” Sam said, foraging in his pocket for his wallet. The woman’s eyes flicked quickly between the three of them before she said, “How many nights?”

After Sam made reservations for a room, the woman turned to Cas. “And you? The same?”

Dean started. He hadn’t really thought about the rooming situation; Cas didn’t usually come along on hunts. And he didn’t really need to sleep, did he? So getting another room would be a colossal waste of money, which they didn’t exactly have in abundant supply.

While Dean struggled to think of what to say, Cas leapt in. “I’ll be sleeping somewhere else. My friends just came into town and I wanted to say hello.”

Dean was momentarily taken aback by how smoothly Cas said this--it had only been five years ago that he had considered telling a police officer that he had witnessed an Angel of the Lord. But a lot had happened in those five years, really. And the past two must have offered Cas ample experience with dealing with humans. In fact, “sink or swim” would probably be the best phrase to describe it.

Dean tried to turn his thoughts to other things.

The room wasn’t five star, or four or three for that matter, but it certainly wasn’t the worst they’d been in--the kitchenette was relatively clean, and a cursory pest check yielded no results. Sam threw his duffel down on the nearest bed. “So, where’s our first stop. Morgue?”

“Morgue,” Dean assented.

Five minutes later, they were on the road again.

* * *

The coroner, an attractive blonde by the name of Steilberg, pulled out the victim’s body. Even under the sheet, it was so small...it was obviously the body of a child. Dean could feel the tension in the room ratchet up a few notches. He shared a quick glance with Sam, whose expression was solemn. They had dealt with countless dead bodies before, hundreds of them. But even after all they’d seen, it was still hard not to be affected when the victim was a child. It was rare, and always tragic.

“I should warn you,” Steilberg said as she moved her hand to the top of the white sheet covering the body, “this is gruesome.”

“We’re in the business of gruesome,” Dean joked, but his chuckle was hollow. Sam shot him a look, and he cleared his throat. “Just, um, give us the run-down, ma’am.”

Steilberg nodded and whisked back the sheet, revealing a child who probably would have stood no higher than Dean’s hip. His face, greyed from its natural dark hue with death, was contorted in an eternal expression of terror. And below that--

Sam actually choked beside him, and somehow managed to turn it into a throat-clearing sound. Dean didn’t blame him. The child’s chest was carved out like a bowl, the ruined flesh along the sides burnt and blistering. The internal organs that would usually reside in the chest simply weren’t there, but Dean could make out the end of a torn off esophagus and the folds of what used to be a stomach along the edges of the cavern. It looked like someone had scooped out all the kids organs and used the kids chest as a firepit.

“The wound was filled with burnt herbs when it was found. Those have been given to the police, you should contact the department if you want to see them.”

“Right,” Sam said, seemingly recovered from his initial shock. “Thank you. If we could just have a moment to study the body.”

“Of course. I’ll be in my office right over there.” Steilberg gestured vaguely out of the room and then walked off in the direction she had indicated.

Once she was out of earshot, Dean let out a breath. “Son of a bitch.”

“So?” Sam said, turning to Cas. “Did you ever see anything like this, when you were in Mesoamerica?”

“This is definitely the work of a tzitzimimeh,” Cas said, his expression grim.

“Do you think you could, I don’t know, track this thing or something?” Dean asked.

“Track it?” Cas squinted and tilted his head.

“Don’t all snakes have, like, a super sense of smell or something? Do you think you could pick up the scent of whatever did this?”

Sam shot Dean a look and rolled his eyes. “Cas, don’t listen to him--”

But Cas interrupted. “I could, but the last time you told me I should stop sniffing dead bodies.”

Dean frowned, not quite sure what Cas was talking about. Sam huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s right, I guess you did, Dean. Remember that guy who made the cartoons come to life?”

And then Dean remembered, and had to stifle a giggling fit when he did. Cas _had_ tried to sniff the dead body--and Dean had promptly shut it down. Of course, a grown man sniffing a dead body was pretty damn weird--but a giant snake? Maybe not so much. “Forget I said that, but try not to be too obvious. Don’t want to freak out the hot coroner when she gets back in here.”

Cas blinked at him, then bent down to sniff the body. His breath came in quick huffs, like a dog, and as he gave the body a once over, tilting and cocking his head this way and that, Dean had the sudden strange image of a velociraptor sniffing out its prey. Dean shook his head. This didn’t really look any less weird now that he knew what Cas was.

“Definitely a tzitzimimeh,” Cas said finally, moving back from the body. “And I have its scent now. If I could go back to the _crime scene_ I could probably follow it back to its lair.” Cas pronounced the words _crime scene_ with his knowing, I’m-hip-with-human-culture tone, and Dean couldn’t help but give a quick grin. “Yeah, let’s do that, buddy. We were gonna question the parents anyways.” Boy, would that be a lot of fun.

After thanking the coroner for her time and asking a few follow-up questions, they piled once again into the Impala and headed for the home of the grieving family.

* * *

**_Then_ **

“Cassie!” Balthazar trumpeted in Enochian, tossing his glossy feathered mane on his front head in greeting. “Fancy seeing you here!”

Castiel rolled her myriad eyes and responded in pidgin Enochian. The words, morphed to fit the human vocal apparatus, felt strange on her vessel’s tongue. “It’s _Quetzalcoatl_ here. What are you doing here?”

“I’ll have you know I’m the local god of the night sky, memory, and time,” he said, raising his snout and looking down at her with mock pretension.

“And what exactly do you do to deserve the souls of sentient beings?”

“Jealous?”

Castiel sighed in exasperation. It was then that she noticed that the gathered humans were still cowering despite the ritual having ended. Many were clasping their hands over their ears and groaning. She turned back to Balthazar. “Balthazar, you need to find a vessel.”

“Or we could fly away to Saturn’s rings. What do you say? It’s only a little more than an hour away. Very romantic I hear.”

“You hear? You’ve been there with every seraph in the solar system.”

“Except you.”

“Balthazar, get a vessel.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your feathers in a twist.” He swiveled his heads in four different directions, peering at the crowd. “Nice of them to all gather here like this. Makes it easier to find one in my bloodline.” The eyes of his front left wing alighted on a tall, fully-matured male human who seemed to be the only one not cowering on the ground, and said, “You, yeah you there.” The rest of his eyes followed suit to peer at the man, something the man didn’t seem too enthused about. “How would you feel about being the great Tezcatlipoca’s vessel for the night?”

The man lowered his eyes and gave a slow shake of his head in what seemed like resignation. Then he looked back up Balthazar. “Of course, my lord.”

“See, that’s why you’ve got to strike fear in their hearts, Cassie. Makes them a lot more compliant. A lot more respectful, too. Balthazar reached around his front head and positioned himself to possess the human.” The connection was made, and light began pulsing through the trumpets into the human’s brainstem. The man’s eyes lit up briefly, and a great burst of light washed over the area. A few humans cried out. Balthazar began to fade into the heavenly dimension. Castiel could still see his great shadowy form poised behind the man, but she knew that the humans couldn’t. Balthazar turned to Castiel and spoke through his vessel. “Happy?”

Castiel gave a curt nod of her vessel’s head. It was odd, watching Balthazar’s vessel move and speak when she could clearly see his true self behind the human. Almost made it look like he was playing an instrument of some kind. But she was fairly accustomed to it by now. “Walk with me?” she asked.

“Ah, I thought she’d never ask.” He walked his vessel up to hers and slid an arm beneath the crook of Chimalma’s elbow. He waved dismissively at the crowd. “Carry on with your festivities, we wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

The silence held as they walked off into the neighboring fields, and it was clear that the festivities wouldn’t be starting up again any time soon. Once they reached the first neighboring farming village (completely empty--everyone was back in the city), Castiel turned to Balthazar. “I was not informed that there were any seraphim operating in the area not affiliated with the Host.”

“You’d think with all those eyes the Host would be a little more aware.”

“The Host will not take kindly to this. You’re on our territory.”

“Isn’t everywhere the Host’s territory? After all, the Universe is God’s. I thought you simply allowed poor freelancers like me to make a living out of the mercy of your grace.”

“Balthazar…”

“Oh, come off it, Cassie. There are dozens of freelancing celestials in any given area, especially around such a great human civilization as this. Besides, the Host can’t handle all of it on their own...the natural disasters, the droughts and famines, plagues. You don’t need to report this.”

“You give us a bad image. We’re supposed to be their guardians; how are we to put them at ease when other members of our species come around once a year asking for souls?”

Balthazar made a strange sound with his vessel’s voice. “And you think angels don’t terrify humans? ‘Be not afraid’ doesn’t really cut it when a mile-long snake lands on your doorstep and asks to take over your body. I say just embrace it.”

“What is that?” Castiel asked.

“What is what?” Balthazar asked, glancing sidelong at her.

“That expression. You huffed air.”

Balthazar frowned at her, then burst out laughing. “Oh, Cassie. You really don’t fraternize with our primate friends enough. That’s a scoff. It’s a joking sound...sort of sarcastic.”

Castiel looked at him blankly.

“You don’t know what sarcasm is, do you.”

Castiel was quickly losing interest in the discussion over the intricacies of human body language, and looked back out at the forest that lined the field they stood in. “Have you ever thought about joining us?”

“Joining the Host? You’ve got to be kidding.” Balthazar studied her faces. “You’re not kidding.”

“We could really use someone like you. Someone who understands humans.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I _understand_ them, per se, they defy explanation sometimes…”

“ _I_ could really use someone like you,” Castiel amended, looking at Balthazar.

Balthazar held her gazes for a long moment, his heads bowed in surprise. Then the blue glow of his eyes softened. “Sixty five million years goes fast, doesn’t it.”

“Sixty-six,” Castiel corrected him promptly. “Even though we weren’t successful, I appreciate that you tried to help. You had no reason to.”

“If we’d managed to stop that asteroid, all of your precious humans wouldn’t exist,” Balthazar pointed out. “And you would have been summarily executed for treason. And, might I say,” he said, tilting his right head toward her, “I did have reason to.”

Castiel’s feathers pinned against her, and Balthazar gave another one of those strange huffing noises through his vessel at her abashed look. “Well, I might have reason again. Who knows? You seem to always manage to convince me to do stupid things.” His tone became abruptly brusque. “We should stay in touch, if we’ll be working in the same area. We’ll probably face some of the same sorts of issues...I’ve heard there is a Tzitzimimeh infestation a couple of hundred miles to the southeast. I’ll see you later.” With that, he whipped the head attached to the vessel around to the city center and dropped it unceremoniously back into the crowd, rematerialized in the earthly dimension, flapped two pairs of his powerful, sleek wings, and launched into the air.

Castiel lifted one of her vessel’s hands, opening her mouth to respond, but Balthazar was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a shortie! I've personally not much of a B/C shipper (I usually don't ship much in general) but it tickles me to think that Balthazar may have chased after him/her with varying degrees of luck, and I wanted to explore Balthazar's out-of-character loyalty to Cas in S6 given the every-man-out-for-himself attitude he sometimes displays. And I threw in their Cretaceous shenanigans just for kicks:)


	5. The Tzitzimimeh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas has a discussion with a dog; Dean has a discussion with a teacher.

Castiel insisted on having a window open as they whipped down NASA 1, past the wide, gray-blue expanse of Nassau Bay. “To see if I can catch the scent down here,” he had said, but Dean wasn’t sure how Cas was going to catch anything other than the strong smell of sea salt and fish mixed with exhaust oil.

“Cas,” he called back as the looming figures of rockets came into view on the side of the road facing further inland, “you see those?”

Cas turned to look out the other window, “The fields?”

“No, the rockets, they’re behind you now. We’re passing NASA. You know, ‘Houston, we have a problem?’” Dean fully expected to have to explain this to Cas, but was surprised when Cas made a noise of recognition.

“Ah, one of your planet’s space-faring organizations.”

“That’s right, I forgot Metatron stuffed all those movies into your head. Guess you already know all about  _ Apollo 13 _ , huh.”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not why...we were very proud of your species, you know, when you made it off your planet. Even if you didn’t get any farther than its satellite.”

“Hey, we got farther than a satellite! We made it to the moon!” Dean said in mock defense.

“The moon’s a satellite, Dean,” Sam said, huffing a laugh.

Dean frowned. Whatever. “I have a hard time imagining Zacariah was doing victory laps when we finally got out to space,” he said. Actually, that was a pretty funny image to imagine. Even now that he had a better idea what Zacariah might actually have looked like, he still couldn’t get the image of the portly, middle-aged man with a permanent pompous expression flapping his way giddily around the sun.

“I don’t know what a victory lap is,” Cas said, “but no, I suppose it wasn’t all of us. Anna, Balthazar and me, we were watching with interest. Balthazar wanted to bet on which nation would do what first, but Anna and I could never keep track of the names of your nations. They’re always changing.”

“I can’t believe that space travel is all that impressive to you guys,” said Sam.

“It’s all relative,” Castiel said, turning back to look out over the bay. “It’s so simple for an angel to leave orbit--well, an angel that can fly, that is,” he said and Dean glanced in the rearview mirror to see Cas hunched over in his seat, with a twisted expression on his face. Dean had no doubt Cas would not be wearing that expression if he thought that Dean could see him. Then his face smoothed abruptly, and he said, “but it’s incredible that earth-bound mortals could do it. I think that angels often forget how very challenging some of those simple things are for corporeal creatures...perhaps some of them understand a little better now. But probably not.”

A seagull drifted by in that moment, hovering over the water, balancing on the wind currents like a tightrope walker on an invisible rope. All three of them watched its performance, silently, as the Impala left it in the dust.

Dean cleared his throat. “So, yeah, not looking forward to interviewing this family.”

“You think?” Sam said. He pulled out his phone and looked at his notes. “The Johnsons. Mother and father still together. Two surviving children. Picture perfect family.”

“Well, it was,” Dean said. They always were before the supernatural stepped into their lives, weren’t they?

After turning off onto a maze of side streets, they eventually reached a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood, each house with cookie-cutter perfectly manicured lawns. Each house, that was, except one, whose ankle-high grass drifted quietly in the humid late summer heat. It was this house that they stopped in front of.

Upon reaching the house, Sam rang the doorbell. They stood there awkwardly for a minute, and, just as Dean was beginning to think that no one would answer, the door unlocked and swung backward. At first it seemed as if no one had answered the door, but then Dean looked down to see a girl who couldn’t be more than ten. She looked up at him with wide brown eyes.

Sam smoothly took over the situation. “Hi there. I’m Agent Kilmister. These are my partners--”

But before he could finish the sentence, the girl spun around, the beads in her braids clacking together as she yelled, “Mom! The FBI’s here!”

“What?” A voice called back from somewhere inside the house.

“The feds are here!”

There were footsteps then, and a woman came shuffling down the hall, saying tiredly, “Don’t play games with me, Kayla, there’s no reason why the FBI would be--” She stopped short when she saw Sam, Dean, and Cas crowded on her front doorstep, and her demeanor of tired impatience turned immediately into one of sourness. “What are you doing here,” she said in a monotone.

Sam’s tone changed slightly when faced with an adult, but he kept the same soothing and sympathetic demeanor as he had used with Kayla. “Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m Agent Kilmister, and these are my partners, Agents Campbell and Dee--”

“Why are there three of you?” little Kayla asked.

“Hush, Kayla,” her mother admonished.

But Kayla would not be deterred. “In the movies there’s always only two of you.”

“Well, that’s in the movies,” Dean said with what he thought was a gentle smile. “In real life we can come in all sorts of numbers.”

Kayla chewed on a nail thoughtfully, looking a little dissatisfied by this answer but not pushing for more.

“The cops have already been by. Multiple times,” Mrs. Johnson said. Her tone held the note of distrust that Dean was used to by now, but more than that it simply held an exhaustion that seemed soul-deep. “Why are you here,” she said in that same lifeless tone.

“Well, ma’am, the attack on your son seems to be a nationwide pattern. The modus operandi of the attacker is unique, and we’ve seen cases like this in Arizona, New Mexico, all across the Southern--”

“The attack on my son. You mean his murder?” Mrs. Johnson’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed.

Dean wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and Sam stepped in again. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Johnson. We just want to catch your son’s killer, and bring him to justice.”

Mrs. Johnson turned to face Sam slowly. “The cops said it was an animal. They wouldn’t listen to me. That wasn’t no animal.”

Dean nodded slowly. “The federal government agrees with you, ma’am.”

There was a long pause. Then Mrs. Johnson stepped back and opened the fine oak door. “Well, come on in, then.”

Sam, Dean, and Cas filed in after Mrs. Johnson, following her and Kayla down a homely entrance corridor with whitewashed walls that looked oddly depressing in the afternoon sunlight. The corridor was littered with toy matchbox cars and a few plastic trains, and the scribbles of a young child who signed his artwork as “Isaiah” were framed lovingly and hung in places of honor along the walls, along with some masterpieces from Kayla. Mrs. Johnson led them to a kitchen with paperwork and empty dishes strewn everywhere, pushed some of the detritus off of a few chairs, and invited them to sit. As he sat, Dean looked around at the tastefully chosen art decor that hung alongside the crayon artwork, the  _ Better Homes and Gardens _ stainless steel kitchen appliances, the trappings of a middle-class suburban home, and he couldn’t help but think that Mrs. Johnson’s house was usually brightly lit and that under normal circumstances she would never be caught with paper and dishes strewn everywhere. But of course these were not normal circumstances.

Unfortunately the interview with Mrs. Johnson didn’t yield too much information--the kid had been walking home from a school play practice, only two blocks away, it had been dusk, no, none of the family had seen anything strange in the days preceding, and if Isaiah had he hadn’t mentioned it. It was at this point that Cas wandered off to the back door. Mrs. Johnson gave him a confused glance. Dean’s knee-jerk reaction was to be annoyed--it was always a gamble, taking Cas along on hunts, because he really was  _ so bad _ at playing the part of a federal agent. Not only did he not have the experience that Sam and Dean had, but he didn’t even have the requisite experience with human behavior in general. But then Dean thought of the corpse-smelling incident, and he realized that perhaps there was something Cas had to do, some angel thing that would help them in their case. After all, in this situation, it was  _ Cas _ who had more experience than they did--more experience with the monster they were hunting. So Dean covered for him.

“Do you mind if our partner takes a look around the house, ma’am?”

“But it didn’t happen here…”

“There could be something that ties into the incident anyways...perhaps your son was being threatened and he didn’t let on, things like that.”

“Oh...well, of course.”

“Right. And did you know where your son was at all times over the past few weeks?” Dean asked, only half paying attention as Cas made his way out into the backyard. A dog with vaguely pitbull-like features trotted up to greet him, sniffing happily at his feet and jumping onto his chest. Cas bent down to the dog and his eyes began glowing a tell-tale angelic blue. Dean had to suppress an eyeroll. Couldn’t Cas do whatever weird angelic thing he had to do somewhere other than in the direct line of view from the kitchen porch door?

The interview lasted another few minutes (Sam and Dean were really dragging it out now, trying to buy Cas some time) before the creaking of the porch door announced Castiel’s return. The dog trotted in at his heels, wagging its tail merrily, before coming to sit by its mistress’s side. Mrs. Johnson laid a hand on its blocky head absently. The dog gave Castiel a long glance, and Castiel nodded his head curtly, once, as if in respect.

“Well, thank you ma’am, I think that concludes our questions. Agent Dee, are you finished with your inspection?”

“Yes,” Castiel said gravely. “Blue was very helpful.”

Mrs. Johnson gave Cas an odd expression. Dean cleared his throat and said hurriedly, “If you can think of anything else, give us a call.” He gave her a card (double-checking to make sure it had the correct alias on it) and made a quick exit with Sam and Cas close behind.

When they were climbing back into the car (and thus out of earshot) Dean said, “So I take it Blue was that pitt in there?”

Castiel tilted his head in confusion. “Blue was the family canine.”

“Right. Um, I’m sure you knew what you were doing Cas, but just a tip, humans aren’t used to FBI agents questioning their animals, so just try to keep it on the down-low next time, will you?”

“Oh, right. Of course.”

“Did you find out anything useful?” Sam asked. Dean was a little surprised by how quickly they both seemed to acclimate to the Dr. Dolittle situation, but seeing as it wasn’t all that long ago he himself had been questioning a dog as a witness, he guessed he shouldn’t be all that surprised.

“Well, she was very eager to help, she loved the boy very much,” Cas said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It was slow going at first--she was still grieving, you know. We talked a bit about our humans and how strange you can be. I think she began to trust me a little more when she realized how much I cared about my own human. But anyways, it was definitely tzizimimeh. And not just one, but several. She’s seen them in the sky every night for the past few weeks, and roaming the streets. Said she’d heard from a neighbor dog that there was a whole nest of them near the school she used to take her human to. She was surprised her family hadn’t seen them. I had to explain to her that humans can’t see as many dimensions as most species. I think it was a major revelation to her, she was simply under the impression that she must have a particularly dimwitted human family.”

“Yeah, thanks, we get it Cas, humans suck. Damn, should have asked the mom where the kid went to school.” He tried to focus on a plan, but he was still stuck on something that Cas had said. His human. Not “humans”, not his “human family”. When he had been talking to the dog he had said “his human”. As a comparison to Blue’s human, the little boy. The dog may have had a whole family, but everyone knew who the dog really belonged to.

Dean shook himself out of his thoughts.

“We could just try the local elementary school,” Sam suggested.

So they did.

* * *

The light was slowly falling as they reached the school. To Dean’s surprise, there were still some children milling around. He realized that they had probably attended some extracurricular activities--it hadn’t occurred to him at first because neither he nor Sam had ever really had the chance to ever do those (although Sam had joined the chess club in middle school, a fact that had made Dean try to distance himself as much from his brother as possible in that particular town). “We’re gonna have to wait for these guys to clear out.”

Sam nodded. “We can try to locate the nest in the meantime.”

They split up to cover ground faster--the grounds were surprisingly large. This, unfortunately, gave Dean time to think.

When he had first been listening to Cas’s story (admittedly with half an ear) he had found it funny, even cute, that ancient civilizations over a thousand years ago could have ever worshipped Cas. Cas, his trenchcoated friend with an almost constant look of mild confusion on his face. Cas, who had only learned about pornography a few years ago. Cas, who had worked a stint at a Gas ‘n Sip, of all places.

But really, it wasn’t cute at all, was it? Because Dean could remember a time when he had seen the power and mystery that had once elicited worship and sacrifice from those ancient civilizations. He had seen its remnants around the grave he had crawled from after years in Hell. He had heard it at a gas station, as the windows blew out around him. He had seen it spread its massive wings in an empty barn, all those years ago.

Cas had never really talked about it with him, but he was fairly sure that those wings were next to useless now.

It had been so long since he had seen Castiel, Angel of the Lord that it was easy to forget what he once was. Easy to forget a time when the demons he questioned had spoken of Cas with terror in their voices.

And Cas had probably been quite used to that reaction. Used to being worshipped, even.

It was truly amazing how different Cas was now.  _ How much weaker _ , Dean thought, feeling the traitor for doing so.

And how quickly he had weakened, too. It was sometimes surprising to Dean how recently the Apocalypse had happened, and how much had taken place in those intervening years. But how short must that space of time seemed to someone ( _ some creature _ ) that was apparently hundreds of millions of years old (if he had been reading Cas’s little aside about the asteroid correctly--had he been talking about  _ the  _ asteroid? Dean hadn’t been the best at the whole school thing but he at least knew that meant they were talking millions, not thousands, of years). The last few years must have seemed like a blink of the eye to Cas.

And he had started down that road all for two humans.

_ Not two humans _ , Dean corrected himself.  _ His human. _

“Are you looking for any kid in particular?” came a voice from behind him, startling him from his reverie. He jumped and bashed his head on a low-hanging branch, then turned to face the speaker with an abashed look.  _ Stupid _ , he reprimanded himself.  _ Rookie mistake. Good thing it’s just a hot school teacher and not a goddamned ancient Aztec monster. _ And boy, was she definitely a hot schoolteacher--couldn’t be too far past her student teacher days. Long, deep brown curly hair that fell down past a butt that was perfectly shaped by her khaki slacks. Man, these teachers were getting younger and younger…

Belatedly Dean remembered that she had asked him a question. “Um, no, no ma’am.” He pulled out his FBI badge and flashed it at her. She gave him a strange look. Dean looked at his badge, then exasperatedly flipped it; he’d been holding it upside down. “We’re investigating the murder of Isaiah Johnson.”

The teacher’s face fell immediately. “Oh, of course,” she said. Then, “I thought it was an animal attack, though?”

So Dean launched once again into his spiel about the fabricated serial killer haunting the Southern US. The teacher looked increasingly more understanding, and finally held out her hand. “Marisol Gonzalez. I’d be happy to help in any way I can. Do you think the kids are in any danger?”

Dean looked into those pretty eyes and wanted desperately to lie, but: “Unfortunately yes. The killer seems to attack children exclusively, and his last attack was in this area. Although he seems to move to a new city after each attack, you can’t rely on that, can you? In fact, it’s best if these kids aren’t out too late after dusk for the time being--that’s when the Johnson kid was attacked.” He looked around, then, noticing for the first time that the remaining kids seemed to have left the school grounds. They were all alone. Even Sam and Cas were nowhere to be seen--they were probably on the other side of the building somewhere, still clearing their own assigned areas.

“You want to go back to my office? I was out here making sure the kids all got to their parents, but I left some assignments I need to grade in there. We could talk a little more about it inside. I’m really glad you came, there have been some strange incidents lately. But everyone was so sure that with Isaiah it was just an animal attack, so I never told anybody. But with you here--”

“Right, absolutely.” Dean thought briefly about asking her if his associates could join him, then decided that would be overkill. And she had only invited him. And it had nothing to do with the way her hips swung as she made her way back up the concrete steps to the doors of the school.

“So, you like kids?” Dean asked as they made their way back to her office, cursing himself immediately for the lameness of the question. He must be getting old if he was losing his touch that badly.

But Marisol merely smiled. “Absolutely. Always have. Unfortunately can’t have my own, but at least I can help guide the next generation. You know, you always hope that what you do now will ensure a better world tomorrow.”

That was a sentiment that Dean understood, although it was a little odd to lead a conversation with that, in his opinion. “Can’t have your own?” he asked, then immediately said, “Sorry, don’t mean to pry.”

“No, I brought it up. There were--complications.”

“Ah. Sorry to hear that. I’ve always wanted my own, too. But like you said, complications--pretty sure mine are different from yours though.”

“I can tell you for a fact they were.” She stopped in front of an old wooden door adorned with a name tag that read “Ms. Gonzalez” surrounded by flowers drawn in marker. The room inside smelled strongly of crayons, glue, and some sort of incense that Dean couldn’t place. Multi-colored cardboard paper covered the wooden desk. Children’s drawings covered the walls in all sorts of styles--crayon, fingerpaint, even glued-on pipe cleaners--and they were joined by school posters with such inspirational quotes as “listen and silent are spelled with the same letters” and “mistakes allow thinking to happen”. Dean looked at the empty chair on the other side of Marisol’s desk, where countless parents had doubtless sat and argued over their children’s grades, and he felt an inexplicable sadness. It was only for a brief moment, but it was there. And he didn’t even know why.

Marisol gestured to the empty chair. “Have a seat. Now, how can I help you?”

“I’ll cut straight to the chase. You said you’ve seen odd occurrences in the past few weeks?”

“Well, school only let in a couple of weeks ago, but yeah. But this is gonna sound crazy.”

“Crazy is my job, ma’am.”

“No, like, really insane.”

“And I’m saying I’ve heard everything from UFO sightings to ghosts. Whatever you’ve seen probably has bearing on the case, even if you don’t interpret it correctly.”

“Well...alright. I’ve felt...earthquakes.”

“Earthquakes?” Now that one really did catch Dean by surprise. Houston sure as hell wasn’t an earthquake area, and he was pretty sure he would have heard about it if one had happened--it would have taken the whole world by surprise. And neither Cas nor the lore had pointed to anything remotely linking tzitzimimeh to earthquakes.

“I know, I know, it’s crazy. And nobody else is feeling them…” she said, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “But you said you dealt with crazy, so…”

A thought struck him then. He hated saying anything to imply that he doubted the people he interviewed, because he was supposed to be Agent Mulder, the only one that would take what they had seen seriously, and it was so hard to get them to open up about that kind of thing. But he had to rule it out. And she had mentioned earlier that she’s had ‘complications’. “There’s no chance that any...medical condition could be causing this sensation, is there? You know, an inner ear balance problem, or something like that?”

She actually gave him a glare at this question, opening her mouth to say something, but then she looked at the door and froze. Dean turned around to see Cas in the doorway, glaring as well: at Marisol. It was a whole glaring party that Dean somehow hadn’t gotten an invitation for.

He turned back to look at Marisol, and was shocked to see her mouthing one unmistakeable word:  _ Quetzalcoatl _ .

“Dean,” Castiel said, keeping his eyes (probably including all the ones Dean couldn’t see) on Marisol.

“You guys got history I should know about?” Dean said, now getting the distinct impression that Marisol wasn’t really an elementary school teacher--and she probably wasn’t a young twenty-something either.

Marisol turned to him, still seated, and fixed a patented sympathetic teacher’s smile on her face. But it didn’t reach her eyes. “Agent Campbell, you didn’t tell me you were a Serpent warrior. I had no idea Quetzalcoatl finally bonded to a human.” She turned back to Castiel. “And oh, the mighty Quetzalcoatl. What in Xibalba happened to your wings?”

Castiel scowled and let out a stream of rapid words in a foreign language. Dean was pretty sure it wasn’t Enochian, though--he’d heard enough to know what that sounded like, even if he couldn’t speak it. Whatever was said, though, Marisol gave a screech of anger, and then she began to  _ change _ .

She had been pleasantly thin before, but now, now she was practically skeletal, her skin greying and her cheekbones caving in as she launched herself over the desk at Dean. “What the f--” Dean had time to get out right before he toppled backwards beneath her. She opened a mouth in a leering grin to reveal a decomposing tongue and a wave of noxious fumes.

“Jesus, you should see someone for that halitosis,” Dean said, gripping her wrists and attempting to throw her off of him. But, damn, she was strong for someone quite literally made of skin and bones.

Suddenly she screamed and rolled to the side, whimpering and clutching her leg. Dean scrambled backwards to see the hilt of an angel blade sticking up out of the bone of her shin (which was pretty much completely visible). Dean lunged forward, untucking his own blade from inside his jacket to finish the job.

“Dean, no!” Cas yelled. “She’s a tzitzimimeh!”

“Yeah, I’d pretty much figured that one out, Cas,” Dean yelled, but he did pause nonetheless, keeping a wary eye on her.

“You kill her and we won’t know where her nest is. Or why they’re here.”

“Dammit Cas, what the hell are we supposed to tie her up with? Uh-uh, you stay right there,” he said, noticing that “Marisol” had begun to roll towards him.

Cas frowned, and suddenly a ring of blue fire shot up around Marisol, in a perfect circle.

“Didn’t know you could still do that crap,” Dean said, getting up gingerly and coming to stand next to him just outside the ring of fire. He glanced at Cas, but his eyes were for the first time drawn to the spot just behind him. Because that was where the fire had come from, he had been certain of it. And now Dean knew why.

Hurried footsteps announced Sam’s arrival behind them. “What the hell happened, is everyone okay? Dean where the hell were you, we were looking for you.”

“Just chatting with  _ Marisol _ here,” Dean said, hitching his chin towards the skeleton still panting in anger behind him (although he wasn’t really sure what she was panting with, she quite visibly had no lungs).

Sam straightened and gave Dean an exasperated expression. “You flirting with monsters again, Dean?”

“Wha--that is pretty rich, coming from you.”

“Dude, that was, like, five years ago!”

“Never mind that!” Castiel yelled, turning back to Marisol. He shook another blade out of his sleeve and stretched his arm out over the flames to hold it to the monster’s throat. “Where is the nest?”

“There is no nest.”

“There’s always a nest.”

“I’m acting alone.”

Cas dug his blade into the underside of the tzitzimimeh’s chin, and she let out a sibilant shriek. “I wanted to get your attention!” she hissed, pulling away from the blade.

Cas drew the blade away slightly. “What?”

“I knew--” Marisol paused to yank her head fully away from the blade, “--I heard rumors, that Quetzalcoatl was back on Earth. We needed someone who had fought it before. I knew if you saw signs of my kind, you would come. But Tezcatlipoca--where is he?”

“Fought what?” Cas said, and Dean didn’t miss the way his mouth pinched when Marisol asked after Balthazar.

“Cipactli.”

Dean had absolutely no idea what that word meant, but it seemed like everybody else in the room did. This included, to Dean’s surprise, Sam, who sucked in a sharp breath. Cas’s face went unnaturally blank, as if he had forgotten to turn on his facial expressions. Then he said, in a low voice, “Cipactli’s dead.”

“Not so much.”

“What makes you think it lives?”

“You can’t feel it?”

Castiel nodded. “The earthquakes.”

“I haven’t felt any earthquakes,” Dean cut in, a little annoyed that he seemed to be the only one behind in the conversation.

“Not in this dimension,” Cas said without looking at him. “Humans can’t feel it. I thought--there have been so many problems in Heaven lately, I just thought it was symptomatic of the Great Fall…”

“Cas…” Sam said, pointing at the ring of flames. Dean noticed with a start that it was starting to flicker, dying down slowly.

Marisol stretched her decaying cheeks into a leering grin. “Quetzalcoatl, you can’t even produce a proper fire ring anymore? My, my, I’d heard your wings were broken, but you’re even more ruined than they say.”

He knew it was stupid. He knew that they probably could have gotten a lot more answers out of her. But something about the look of humiliation that crossed Cas’s face at her statement snapped something in Dean. “Yeah, well, I can tell you his claws are still in perfect working order,” he said, stepping over the barrier of fire and shoving his angel blade into the remains of her throat. The tzitzimimeh sputtered, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly for a few moments, before she collapsed in a heap of ash.

“Dean…” Cas said, giving Dean an exasperated look.

“Why do you let people talk to you like that, Cas? You’re a goddamned Aztec god, why do you put up with that shit?”

Cas gave Dean a long look that Dean didn’t really know how to interpret.

Sam cleared his throat. “Well, so, now that that lead’s unusable…”

“If Cipactli’s alive, it won’t be hard to find. It isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”

“Ok, back up, Cas. What is Cipactli?”

“Holy shit,” Sam said, and Dean turned to find Sam staring at his phone.

“What?”

Sam held out the phone to Dean. Dean looked down at what looked like a result from Google images. The banner below the image (from some site called DeviantArt) titled the image as “Cipactli”.

Dean stared at the image for five whole seconds.

“Cas. What is this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Ugh I messed up with those paragraphs AGAIN--I'm sorry to anyone who was confused by my gaffs with copying my stuff onto AO3 with Chapter 3, don't know what's wrong with me. Also, I am editing my work as I go along (sorry!) and so sometimes small things are changed in earlier chapters. Once it's all complete I'll try to leave it alone.
> 
> This chapter the action in the present was sort of heavy, so I decided to break from the normal present/past format to keep the chapters at similar lengths. The next chapter will probably be all in the past. Now I'm finally getting into the meat of Dean and Cas's strange interspecies friendship, I'd love your opinions on how I am handling it, including suggestions for improvement. Even if I don't change things in this fic, it'll help improve my writing in future works:)
> 
> Thanks everyone for sticking with me!!


	6. Top Form

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quetzalcoatl gets an assignment; Team Free Will discuss Cipactli.

**_Then_ **

“Samandriel!” Castiel yelled after their newest recruit. “Fall back! That’s an order!”

But Samandriel was off already into the cave, the patter of her vessel’s feet growing farther and farther away. “ _ Ammit _ . Balthazar, follow her.”

Balthazar nodded, but paused by Castiel as he ran his vessel towards the maw of the cave. “Don’t be too hard on her, Cassie. I’m sure you were just as eager to prove yourself at eight million years.”

“Go,” Castiel barked. This was not the time for conversation; not in the middle of a tzitzimimeh extermination. Balthazar was still clearly unused to the strict structure of a Host operations--he had only joined a couple of years back--but she couldn’t have him setting a bad example for the rookie.

Balthazar nodded and followed on Samandriel’s tail. Castiel turned back to the hoard of skeletal creatures in front of her.

Dual-wielding a short and long blade, she made quick work of the tzitzimimeh--within five minutes at least twenty lay dead at Chimalma’s feet, and she could feel the power of the dozen monster souls that she had smote settling in her comfortably. She turned to the fifty or so city-people that stood in a cluster against the treeline, huddled together in terror. “Return to your homes. We will finish off the rest of the nest by nightfa--”

But at that moment the unmistakable screech of a seraph’s Voice split the air. Castiel whipped around to watch as Samandriel came tearing out of the cave with Balthazar close on her heels, a stampede of at least a hundred tzitzimimeh behind them. Before Castiel could even register what was happening, a tzitzimimeh had Samandriel cornered up against the outer cave wall with an angel blade pinned to her throat. Samandriel unhinged her jaw and tilted her head back.

Castiel knew what was about to happen a split second before it did, but that was a split second too late. She lunged towards Samandriel. The entire area was bathed in a blazing blue-white light.

When the light cleared, the entire throng of tzitzimimeh lay dead on the ground, their skeletal faces pulled back into eternal grimaces. Castiel turned around slowly, dreading what she would see.

Every last human villager was dead.

Everyone, that was, except one male who crawled along the ground, howling in misery. One hand was half-covering hollow eye sockets surrounded by flaking, burnt skin. He pulled himself up to Chimalma’s feet and grabbed at her skirt. “Please. Please, help, oh gods, help.” Rolling over, the man retched onto the damp ground beside him.

Castiel bent down and slowly brought one of her vessel’s hands to the side of his head, cradling his face. “ _ Undl atraatia, Ascha, _ ” she murmured, and let a powerful surge of Grace rush from her trumpets through the conduit of her vessel. The man slumped to the ground, brain-dead in an instant.

Castiel straightened her vessel and slowly turned back to Balthazar and Samandriel. The latter looked at her sheepishly.

Within the space of a moment Castiel had thrown both Samandriel and her vessel against the side of the cave, pinning her there with the talons of her left forepaw. “What were you thinking?!” she screeched, so loudly that that she knew her Voice was breaking through into the earthly dimension. “You never,  _ ever _ , enter the earthly dimension in front of humans without warning!  _ Never _ ! You either use your vessel or  _ irqaaol _ .  _ Never _ bring your True self into this plane!  _ Look what you’ve done _ !”

Samandriel tucked her wings in and bowed her heads. “I--I didn’t--they were going to kill me--she had me pinned--”

“ _ Then you die! _ ” Castiel spat. “These are God’s favored creatures, sentient mortals, they are his finest creation. You exist  _ to serve them _ . Of course we could use our true forms to win any fight. Why do you think we don’t? Because the collateral damage is unacceptable! You will lay down your life for mortals, or you do not belong in the Host!” By now Samandriel was whimpering, keening. For some reason the display of guilt just infuriated Castiel more. She seized Samandriel in her jaws by the nape of one of her center necks and dragged her until her noses were practically in the pile of human corpses. “Look at them! You have killed every one of them!  _ Look at them! _ ” She let Samandriel go, and Samandriel fell to the ground with a yelp. “When the reapers come, tell them that they are to hold off on orders from the captain of the 42nd garrison. You will be taking every one of these souls to their places in Heaven personally, and you can think about the consequences of your actions on the way.”

She turned away with a hiss and launched into the air, leaving a miserable Samandriel behind her.

When she landed just outside the city, she was annoyed to find Balthazar landing at her side. “What do you want?”

“Castiel.”

“Yes.”

Balthazar halted, and gave an exaggerated sigh through his vessel. “Was that...that little episode back there really necessary?”

“You saw the body count. Of course it was necessary.”

“And what exactly are you trying to sell? I mean, why would anyone join the Host, Cassie? You work for no souls--”

“--we get a steady supply of Grace from Heaven--”

“--and you may have to give up your life? For mortals? And  _ all  _ the regulations! Seriously, Cassie, why would anyone want to join the Host?”

“Why did you?”

Balthazar pursed his vessel’s lips. “You know why.”

Castiel did know why. And sometimes it made her deeply uncomfortable.

She was spared the task of awkwardly changing the subject when the sound of a celestial’s trumpets broke through the low-hanging clouds. And not just any celestial. No; that was the fanfare of an archangel.

It wasn’t every century that Castiel saw one, and every time she did it was breathtaking just how massive members of that ancient species were. What descended from the clouds did so slowly, gracefully, magnificently. It was a moving mountain, a glacier in the sky. Each of its heads was easily as long as Castiel’s entire body, and one of its paws could have taken out the entire human city in a single step. When it landed, the Earth shook; trees lost their branches, and a few of the humans’ shelters collapsed from the vibrations alone, prompting several screams. None of the humans in the surrounding fields actually reacted to the archangel, though, and Castiel noticed for the first time that it was keeping its true self in the heavenly plane; all that could be seen on the earthly one was a short, elderly man with wild, snowy hair.

Balthazar muttered an Enochian curse. “Why is Gabriel here? The true form incident can’t seriously have been important enough to rate an archangel.”

“I can hear you, Balthazar, and no, this isn’t about the dead humans,” Gabriel said, giving his vessel a toothy smile. “I’m here to speak to your dear captain.”

Castiel folded her wings at attention, feeling uneasy. An archangel was rarely good news--an archangel wanting to speak to her specifically was even worse. She padded over to Gabriel slowly, bowing her heads and her vessel. “Yes, Gabriel?”

Gabriel gave a Balthazar an obvious glance before turning back to Castiel. “Fly with me.”

Balthazar gave a full-body eyeroll. “Right. I’ll just wait here, then. Don’t mind me!”

Gabriel ignored him and took flight. Castiel followed suit, tucking her vessel into her mouth as she did so. She had no idea where they were going, but it became clear that it wasn’t going to be anywhere on Earth as the atmosphere thinned and the sky darkened. It was only once they had passed the moon that Gabriel began to speak, his words punctuated by the steady beat of his golden wings.

“So, from an aerial view of the battleground it looks like your operation ended up being a grade-A clusterfuck.”

“There were some complications,” Castiel said guardedly. Then she added, hesitantly, “I thought this wasn’t about the dead humans?”

“No. Actually I’ve come to give your garrison another assignment; don’t ask me why, even I don’t know why I’m trusting you with this one.” Three wing beats passed, then: “Something’s brewing in the Gulf, near the asteroid’s crater. At first it was just causing earthquakes, collapsed a few villages. Caused one helluva tsunami. We thought it was just routine plate tectonics, you know?” Gabriel paused to sigh here. “I sent some poor sod to check it out, some rookie who practically still had his down feathers.”

There was a long moment of utter and complete silence. “And?” Castiel finally said.

“And it ate him!” Gabriel said. “One bite! I mean, the kid was pretty scrawny, but…”

“It ate him?” Castiel was missing something. “What’s ‘it’?”

“The crocodile!”

“A seraph was eaten...by a crocodile?” Castiel asked, sure she had misheard.

“No, not a crocodile, not those little water lizards, this giant...look, I don’t even know what it was, okay? It was huge, it was ugly, and it ate one of my seraphim! Anyways, I’m putting you and the rest of your garrison in charge of killing the damn thing.”

“Permission to ask a question, sir?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Why my garrison? Rachel’s is much closer.”

“Look,” Gabriel said, stopping and turning to face Castiel in mid-space, “I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but, you know the Apocalypse?”

Castiel halted beside him, floating in the inky void. “What about it?”

“The first seal, you know what it is?”

“Of course. A righteous warrior will step off of the racks of Xibalba. And the Host will rescue him. What of it?”

“Well, I happen to know you’re on the short-list for the job. You’ve reached the technical interview stage, if you will.”

Castiel was glad that she wasn’t flying, because she was certain that if she had been she would have collided with something. She opened and closed her mouths a few times, stupidly, before saying, “Me?”

“Oh, please. Don’t look so surprised; you’re one of the best damn combat flyers in the Host. And you’re gonna have to deal with the human a lot afterward; be his liaison to Heaven. You seem to have a fondness for mortals, so…”

“My skill with human interaction leaves a lot to be desired. If you’re looking for someone who can blend in with them, it’s Balthazar you should be talking to.”

“Balthazar can blend in with them, yeah, so can I, if I do say so myself. But you actually  _ like _ them. And sometimes that can be more important when it comes to getting the humans to trust you.”

Castiel didn’t know what to say. She could hardly believe her ears. To be chosen to pull the righteous man from Hell was a great honor; one that she never thought in a trillion years she would be offered. She was flooded with excitement, but also apprehension. This had to be one of Gabriel’s tricks. At any moment, he was going to trumpet in laughter, mock her for taking him seriously for even an instant.

As if he could read her thoughts, he said, “Castiel, if I’d wanted to make fun of you, I wouldn’t have taken you out in the middle of nowhere to talk to you about this. I didn’t want everyone to know about it, you know, just in case you didn’t end up getting it. Because it’s not yours yet. You still gotta kill whatever the hell that thing is in the Gulf. You do that, you get the job. We’ll provide you with any reinforcements you need, but you’ll be leading them.”

“Can I have Balthazar?”

“Yeah, of course. Don’t know why you’d want him, he breeds with his goat-face, but there’s no accounting for taste. Who else?”

“Just Balthazar.”

Gabriel tossed his head. “This thing  _ ate a seraph _ , Castiel. You’re gonna need more than that.”

“Trust me. Sometimes less is more when it comes to an operation like this. We’ll scout the situation beforehand; if I need reinforcements I will let you know.”

Gabriel gave her a long look. “OK,” he said simply. “I’m going to round Mars and come back to Earth. You round the Sun and come back to Earth. If you make it there first, you get brownie points.”

Castiel looked at Gabriel’s enormous wings; at Mars, which they were nearly upon; and at the Sun, which from here looked like little more than a firefly. Damn.

Without any sort of warning, Gabriel gave a flap of his powerful wings and was off. Castiel scrambled to get into position and launched herself in the opposite direction. This was crazy. This was completely ridiculous. He was at least ten times her size, and the Sun was so far away…

But as she shot through the open space and the yellow orb gradually increased in size, she forgot to worry about any of it. It was just her and the Sun. No atmosphere, not a single sound in the world to distract her. Just her, and the growing warmth and light of that star.

Eventually she whipped around it, letting its orbit pull her until she broke free on the other side.

In a little less than a half hour after Gabriel had first flown off on her, she was landing back on the edge of the city. She was surprised to find Balthazar still there.

“So, what was that all about?” he asked. His feathers were ruffled in annoyance.

“Is Gabriel not back yet?”

“What? No, wasn’t he with you? How did you lose him, he’s the size of a bloody mountain.”

Castiel looked around, disbelieving. There was simply no possible way she could have made it back before him.

Trumpets sounded, and the surrounding area was suddenly bathed in light. Castiel looked up to see Gabriel winging overhead.

“I knew the kid had it in her!” he called out without slowing. “Call me when you take care of that thing, and--”

But whatever he was going to say, neither Castiel nor Balthazar heard, because Gabriel was already miles away, speeding over the distant horizon.

“Again, I’ll ask,” Balthazar said, watching him go, “what the hell was that all about?”

Castiel turned to him. “We have work to do.”

* * *

**_Now_ **

“So this thing was, what, a giant crocodile?” Sam asked as they filed back into the motel room. “Was it from Purgatory? Was it a pagan god? Or…” Sam said. “I mean, nothing against pagan gods or anything.”

“To this day we’re not sure what it was, or where it came from,” Cas said. “But it was  _ not _ a crocodile. It was at least the size of an adult seraph. And it had too many mouths to be a crocodile.”

Now that was an image Dean didn’t really want to dwell on. Instead he said, “But you defeated it, right? How did you do that?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Balthazar’s help,” Castiel said. “And it would be difficult for two humans to outmatch it, due to sheer size difference. I honestly think superior combined size might have been the only reason we triumphed. And obviously we weren’t completely successful.”

“Well, look, there’s other seraphim around, right? Why don’t you just call someone else up?”

“First of all, no, there  _ aren’t _ a whole lot of other seraphim around,” Castiel said, looking frustrated. “And even if there were, I lost the last of my allies when I...gave up on that army,” he finished, glancing at Dean and then looking away quickly.

Dean frowned. He hadn’t really thought about that...Castiel always seemed to have angelic friends somewhere, even when most of the angels hated him. Dean shook his head. “Well, that’s a shame. I was never a big fan of halos, but they could be handy in a tight spot.”

“Cas,” Sam asked softly, “What do you mean, ‘there aren’t a whole lot of other seraphim around’?”

Cas looked away. He hesitated, then said, “Seraphim are an endangered species now, Sam.”

“Yeah well,” Dean chuckled, “No great loss there.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could take them back. Castiel looked as if he had been struck in the face.

“Shit, Cas,” he said, “I didn’t mean it that way…”

“You didn’t mean it in what way, Dean?” Cas said quietly. “What positive meaning could that have possibly had?”

Dean didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Was it...the war?” Sam asked, still with that gentle tone.

“That,” Cas said, “and the Great Fall. Many were killed during the Fall; even more died in the ensuing territorial battles. So if you were attempting to politely ask me if I am responsible for the near extinction of my species, Sam, the answer is yes.”

It was the kind of statement that really had no answer; what was Dean supposed to say to that? But Sam attempted one anyways. “Hey, Cas, the Fall wasn’t really your fault--”

But Cas was shaking his head before Sam could even finish. “Don’t try to defend me, Sam.”

As much as Dean hated to give any excuse for Castiel’s behavior during the civil war, he found himself saying, “And, Cas, with the war, you were just trying to save the world. Save humanity. Sure, it wasn’t the smartest thing you could’ve done, there were like a million better ways you could have done that, but--”

“Dean, I have been alive for longer than your entire species has existed. Seraphim as a species have existed since the dawn of time. The  _ dawn of time _ , Dean. At least  _ fourteen billion years _ . And in the space of three, I have nearly completely wiped them out.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” Dean said. “You guys aren’t exactly pacifists; they would have wiped themselves off the map without your help eventually.” Ah, damn, that hadn’t exactly been sensitive either, had it. “Well,” he said lamely, “At least this gives you a good pick up line with the lady angels, right? I mean, someone’s gotta repopulate the race.”

“Dean, shut up,” Sam said.

“Yeah, okay.”

There was silence for a long minute; Sam scratched his head awkwardly. Dean fidgeted. Cas stared at his feet. Something was bothering Dean, something about Balthazar, and the whole timeline surrounding the Purgatory fiasco. But he couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was.

“So…” Sam said after a while, “any ideas on what to do?”

Cas shook his head. “When I confronted Cipactli, I was at top form. I was in my prime. I could smite entire cities in one shot, I could fly at near-light speed. Now…” He looked out through the darkened window of the motel room.

“Cas,” Dean said. “Look at me.”

Cas did, reluctantly.

“How bad is it?”

Cas rubbed the back of his neck. “Bad,” he whispered. “Really, really bad.” He shook his head, staring up at the ceiling.

Dean sighed. “I know your wings broke in the Fall, right? Now, I don’t know anything about how angels work, hell, I didn’t even know what you guys looked like until a day ago, but I do know a bit about mending broken bones. Did you try setting it at all?”

Cas shook his head. “For the first several months, I was human. I don’t know...I don’t know where my real body even was at that time, how I got it back when I got my Grace back, any of it, I don’t know. By the time I got my own body back, they’d already healed incorrectly. And anyways, I never knew how to do that. The Host always had designated Healers to tend to the soldiers. And wings are so delicate--usually if you broke a wing, the Rit Zien would just put you out of your misery, because it was understood that you’d never fly again.”

“Is that...it? That you can’t fly? The um,” Sam hesitated, “the tzitzimimeh seemed to imply that it was more than just your wings.”

Now Cas was looking distinctly uncomfortable. “The um, when the Leviathans possessed me, it, um, had some lasting effects. And, and there are scars from Purgatory, and the war. I lost one of my tails, a few eyes, it’s...bad.”

_ He’s disfigured _ , Dean realized.  _ He’s disfigured, and he’s ashamed _ .

“Uh, Cas,” he said. Damn, he was never good at this stuff. “You know--you know we don’t care about that, right? I mean, it’s not like we can see you or anything--”

“Of course you don’t,” Cas snapped. “That doesn’t change anything, does it.” He looked away then, passing a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry. None of this is your fault. I just--” He sighed. “I wish I could be of more help.”

“Cas,” Dean said, shaking his head, “why didn’t you tell us?”

Cas didn’t meet his eyes. “Why would I? There’s nothing you can do about it. And I have no one to blame for it but myself.”

“Yeah, but, Cas. You really kept this under your hat the whole time?”

“Under my--”

“I mean, you sat on it. You kept it to yourself. You’re our brother, Cas. If you’re hurting I wanna know about it.”

“Really, Dean? Because I recall the one time  _ I _ needed  _ your _ help, you--” Cas paused, a stricken expression on his face.

And there it was.

Honestly, Dean had been wondering when Cas would mention it. After the months had slid by and Cas seemed just as loyal, just as stoic as ever, he figured that maybe Cas had gotten over it. Or, and Dean had thought this more likely, that Cas had just viewed the whole situation in that alien way of his. That it had never upset him in the first place.

But obviously that had been wrong.

Sam looked between them with a nervous expression. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing,” Cas said hurriedly, “it’s not of import, just a minor disagreement--”

“Cas didn’t choose to leave the bunker on his own, Sam. Right after the Fall. And the Trials,” Dean said, staring at his lap. He couldn’t bring himself to look up at either of them.

“What?”

“He, um, I told him he had to leave. Because of Gadreel. Gadreel told me Cas couldn’t stay.”

“Holy shit, Dean. Seriously?”

“It was my fault,” Cas said quickly. “The Fall, all of it. You were under no obligation to take me in. I had just made life even more difficult for you both. I reaped what I sowed. But after that--Dean,” and here Cas looked at Dean not accusingly, but with an almost imploring expression, as if he truly needed the answer: “If I couldn’t turn to you for help when I was a human, why would I do it as an angel?”

Dean had no answer to that.

Cas shook his head. “I know, I know I’ve committed many sins, sins that I haven’t yet paid for and likely never will be able to. And you owe me nothing. But, Dean, I already have a family that calls me ‘brother’ and doesn’t really mean it. I don’t need another one.”

And with that Cas left, on foot.

“Aren’t you gonna follow him?” Sam said.

Something welled up in Dean then, at hearing Sam’s between-the-lines accusation, as the door clicked gently closed behind Cas.

Anger.

“Why should I? You heard him,” Dean said. “We don’t owe him anything. He fucked up pretty bad. If he wants to go and have a pout about it, that’s up to him.”

“Dean, what the hell. You know that’s not you talking.” Sam’s eyes flicked to Dean’s arm.

That really sent Dean over the edge. “Stop blaming everything on the Mark, Sam. Sometimes it’s just me. And why should I go after him?”

“Because he’s your--”

“My what?”

Sam set his jaw. “Fine,” he said, getting up and walking out the door after Castiel.

Dean looked at the closed door for a moment, then shrugged and flipped on the motel TV. It was playing  _ Never Ending Story _ of all things. Dean made a move to switch it. Watching the luck dragon pull the kid out of the swamp gave him a strangely empty feeling, and he couldn’t even say why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...maybe I'm being a little hard on Dean, but I didn't like how Dean and Cas never really talked over that whole situation in the show. And it seemed like Cas *was* upset with him in "Heaven Can't Wait". So I figured that Cas would be a little annoyed that Dean talks about family now, when he didn't treat him like family back then, and would be struggling with some anger towards Dean while feeling that he may have deserved it, on top of some alienation due to being a different species. So I hope that worked out okay.
> 
> Also, Cas might have seemed a little hard on Samandriel, but I think sometimes it's easy to forget that he was once the captain of a garrison and was pretty stoic and harsh in those early seasons, so I figured he might've been capable of giving someone a stern dressing-down. And I'd sorta always wondered why they didn't just blast peoples eyes out when they were losing a fight, so that was my answer to that--they had it drilled into them. Also, wasn't so sure about Gabriel's voice, and I know that some of the slang they used certainly wouldn't have existed back then, I was just trying to keep them in character.
> 
> If you guys have any thoughts on any of those things, or any thoughts in general, please let me know in the comments! Thanks!!


	7. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balthazar learns of a prophecy; Team Free Will looks to an unlikely ally.

**_Then_ **

The soothing smell of incense hit the sinuses of Balthazar’s vessel as soon as he entered the temple, and Balthazar felt a faint reverberation of the calm it inspired in the human. It was amazing, really, how easily the emotions of corporeal creatures were affected by the observations of their senses. After all, celestial beings were much more aware of their natural surroundings, much more in tune with the movements of Creation than humans were. But that sliver of the outer world that did manage to grab the attention of the human—how keenly it was felt! Every emotion that humans experienced was an endlessly complex interplay of several natural processes: the circulation of blood, the rate at which oxygen was exchanged for carbon dioxide, the levels of various hormones. Sometimes it was impossible to tell whether the emotions induced the changes present in the corporeal body, or whether the bodily processes inspired the emotions—or whether they were indeed one and the same.

As messy a process as it was, Balthazar had to admit to himself that he sometimes envied it.

The priestess was there, as always. This time she stood over a clay pot that held a burning flame. The light from the flame flickered in her obsidian eyes, which seemed to be looking at something that even Balthazar could not see.

He cleared his vessel’s throat, leaning against a likeness of himself that was carved into the temple wall. “Pretty fine looking fellow, this one,” he said, jerking a thumb at his snarling jaguar face. “Come ‘round here often?”

The priestess shifted her gaze slowly to the real jaguar face, the one positioned just behind his vessel. Balthazar shuffled his wings. It was always unnerving, a mortal who could see his True Self. Unnatural.

“You called?” he tried again, when she remained silent.

“Please,” she said, gesturing to the ground on the other side of the fire. She gingerly lowered herself to the ground then, propping her withered hands on her knees and gazing up at him. Balthazar seated his vessel, lowering himself at the same time. He waited for her to continue.

“I have been studying the celestial bodies,” she finally said.

Balthazar wiggled his vessel’s eyebrows. “Oh? Like anything you saw?”

The priestess gave him a withering look that made Balthazar feel like a fledgling again. “I have also been communing with the ancestors within the temazcal—”

“Let me guess. You need help interpreting something. That’s not really my specialty—”

“—and I think there’s something you need to know.”

Balthazar raised one of his vessel’s eyebrows, intrigued. Rarely did a human have something to show  _ him _ that he didn’t already know. And the ones who thought they did were usually mistaken. “And what might that be?”

“In a little over a millennium, the Sun will swallow the Earth if the gods do not intervene.”

Balthazar sighed and leaned back. Many human cultures had tripped over the quickly approaching apocalypse, even if they hadn’t quite gotten the details correct. She had probably mixed up the Morning Star with the star at the center of the solar system, an easy mistake to make. “That’s essentially correct,” Balthazar said. “And I already knew, as does Quetzalcoatl, as do most of the gods. But I appreciate it nevertheless.” With that he began to lift his vessel to its feet again.

The priestess grabbed one of the talons of his left forepaw. A growl escaped his throats. It never ceased to fascinate him how presumptuous humans could be, of all the sentient creatures he had dealt with over the eras. “That’s not what I wanted to tell you,” the priestess said.

Now Balthazar was really intrigued, albeit still a little disgruntled. He sat back down.

“Though she does not know it yet, Quetzalcoatl will have a very important part to play in the apocalypse.”

Balthazar knew this too; although Castiel had been warned not to spread the news of her being considered for the Righteous Man job, she hadn’t been able to resist telling Balthazar. She’d told him almost immediately after Gabriel’s departure. It was good to hear that she would get the job. “Actually, she knows that, too.”

“I am not referring to the rescue of the warrior from the North,” the priestess said, shaking her head. “I am referring to the fact that Quetzalcoatl will bond with the warrior.”

Balthazar took this in, shifting his wings in agitation. Bonding was an ancient tradition, as old as sentient mortal life itself, and it was completely natural. It had even been encouraged by their Father, while the old Geezer had still been around. But everyone knew that the celestial being usually got the short end of the stick when bonded to a mortal. And nothing could bode well from being bonded to the vessel of an archangel. “And?” he asked uneasily. “Not that surprising given that she will have saved him from the torment of Xibalba.”

The priestess gave him a sympathetic look before saying, “He will ask her to Fall for him, and she will.”

Balthazar couldn’t help but let out a laugh. He was surprised to find that he had actually been a little concerned about what she was going to say, but what she had ended up saying was so absolutely unbelievable as to relieve Balthazar immediately. “Quetzalcoatl? Take the Morning Star’s side? Nice one. Have you even met her? She’s loyal to a fault. A good little soldier.”

“I did not say she would usher on the Sun’s destruction of the Earth. But she will nevertheless rebel. She will be on neither the gods’ side nor the Sun’s side. She will be on the side of her warrior.”

Balthazar didn’t know what to say. Castiel, rebel? The seraph that had practically dragged him into service, the seraph that wouldn’t hear a word against the Almighty dead-beat dad? But bonding to a mortal—it could cause the most loyal, beloved children of God to make the stupidest decisions. After all, hadn’t Lucifer been a warning to them all?

For a while Balthazar couldn’t figure out how to respond. Eventually he asked, “Why are you telling me this? Why aren’t you telling her?”

The priestess laid a gnarled hand on his jaguar snout and looked into the eyes that rested between her fingers. “Because she would not listen to me, a mere mortal. And this kind of a warning usually comes best from a loved one.”

Balthazar snorted. “Celestial beings do not take part in reproductive pairing and the rituals you mortals assign to it, unless as a curiosity.”

“Affection comes in many forms, not just the one of which you speak,” the priestess said. “And you do care for her, don’t you?”

Balthazar shuffled his wings awkwardly. “I have to go.”

“Yes, you do, the priestess said. “Talk to her.”

* * *

**_Now_ **

Sam walked out into the parking lot. The night air was humid, oppressive. One street lamp blinked on and off, zapping large moths everytime it did so. Sam went to stand by the Impala and bowed his head, attempting to clear his mind. He found that speaking aloud always helped him to focus his prayer, so he muttered, “Cas, wherever you are, please. Come back. We really want to help you. I know Dean--we--haven’t always been as--”

“I’m right here, Sam. There’s no need to pray.” Cas’s voice came from somewhere nearby. Sam looked up to see a trenchcoated silhouette standing just outside the halo of light cast by the flickering lamp. But Castiel wasn’t looking at him; he was watching the moths as they flew into the light and fell to the ground.

Of course he hadn’t gone far. He couldn’t fly, after all.

Sam moved to stand beside him, trying to think of how to start in on what he wanted to say. Speaking to Cas through prayer felt a little different than speaking to him in person.

Cas spoke first. “Did you know that the moths aren’t really attracted to the light? They confuse it with the natural light of celestial bodies, which they use as landmarks to determine the angle of their flightpath. When humans put up artificial lights, they end up following the wrong lightsource, making the wrong choices. They burn and fall.”

Sam sighed. “Cas…”

“Sometimes…” Cas shook his head. “Sometimes it still amazes me. When I look at the path that led me here. Back then, if someone had told me that I would rebel, the choices I would make...I would never have believed them. Balthazar always told me, don’t bond with a mortal, they only ever cause you pain. He warned me when I got the job…”

Sam wasn’t sure what Cas was talking about. Bonding? He could only assume that it had something to do with Dean. Sam had long wondered what exactly it was that Dean and Cas had between them. To Sam, Cas was a close friend; his best friend, really, not counting his brother. But to Dean, Sam knew he was more. No one could get under Dean’s skin the way that Cas could, no one (save Sam) could elicit the same level of protectiveness from him. It wasn’t really like any sort of relationship that Sam had seen before, and sometimes he wondered if it was something that only a human and angel could share. But Sam knew that now was not the time to grill Cas on it.

“Angels were never supposed to have free will,” Cas continued. “Seraphim were not created for decision-making, not on the scale that humans are. Just as humans did not evolve to understand quantum physics intrinsically. Our species are simply different that way. When Dean asked me, in the green room during the apocalypse, I...it was a completely new experience for me. I must admit that I have made many mistakes in my attempt to master the concept, and I still don’t understand it. Sometimes I don’t think I ever will. I simply wasn’t built for it.”

They stood in silence for a while together. Eventually, Sam said, “We should have helped you. You know, with your…” Sam gestured vaguely at Cas’s back, before remembering that that wasn’t exactly where his wings were. He found his eyes lingering in that direction, wondering just where Castiel really was in that next-door dimension. Was he looking at him with those giant alien faces that he apparently possessed? Was he even now folding the remains of his wings over the one-story motel?

Cas seemed to catch his drift, saying, “You didn’t know.”

“We should have asked. With all the times you’ve healed us--”

“You are humans. It is the duty of an angel to guard and protect its human, not the other way around. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”

“C’mon, Cas. Seriously? We’re the brothers that stopped the Apocalypse, remember?”

Castiel quirked a smile. “That is not something that is easily forgotten. But this is different. This is not a war, Sam.” He paused, and the expression on his face told Sam that he was debating over whether to say what he said next. “I...I think I understand, now. What Bobby felt. When he was in that chair.”

Sam hadn’t really thought about this before. To them, flying was a bonus, a cool superpower that Castiel and the rest of the angels were lucky to have. He knew that Bobby in particular had difficulty feeling sympathy for Cas regarding the loss of his powers back during the Apocalypse, considering that he himself had been wheelchair-bound at the time. But to a seraph, Sam realized, being flightless would be tantamount to the paraplegia.

For nearly two years he had lived like this, and not once had he complained, not once had he let on the severity of his handicap. As soon as he had regained even a fraction of Grace, he had simply leapt back into the fray again, as he always had.

“We’ll find something,” Sam said, resolving right then and there that he would do good on his word.

“How, Sam,” Cas said wearily. “Even angels know that it is a hopeless case--that’s why they hate me so. I have rendered every single one of my brothers and sisters flightless. If there was a way, don’t you think that in fourteen billion years my species would have figured it out by now?” Cas shook his head. “Besides, even if there was some way for me to regain flight, I would be the least deserving of all the angels to receive that benefit.”

“You just trusted the wrong person, Cas.”

“I always do, don’t I?”

“Yeah, I mean, you trusted me back during the Apocalypse, right?” Sam started at Dean’s voice. He turned to see Dean standing in the open door frame. “I should have known right then that you were a terrible judge of character.” Dean strolled out and clapped Cas on the back. “You’re right, we don’t have the first clue how to heal a giant spirit snake...thing, or whatever you are. So we gotta make a call.”

“Dean, he’s right though. The angels don’t know how to heal wings, obviously,” said Sam.

“I’m not talking about one of those cloud-hopping asshats--no offense, Cas. I’m talking about Crowley.”

“What?” Sam and Cas exclaimed at the same time.

“Dude, if the angels don’t know how to do it, then what makes you think  _ Crowley _ does?”

“I don’t think he’ll know how to do it  _ himself _ ,” Dean clarified. “But he’s King of Hell. He has connections.”

“Crowley is the last person who would want to see me well again,” Castiel growled.

“Eh, I know, but it’s worth a shot,” Dean said. “The limey’s got a soft spot for you, Cas. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know what you two got up to when you were bed buddies during the War.”

Cas squinted at him in confusion; Sam rolled his eyes. “OK. Whatever. Probably good to keep an eye on him anyways. We haven’t checked in with him in a while.”

Dean clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Alright then. Let’s go make a demon trap.”

* * *

They ended up making the pentagram in the motel parking lot. After all, the owners had probably seen much weirder things--a few men drawing Satanic symbols and chanting in Latin was nothing next to the drug overdoses and missing sex workers this place had to have contended with over the years.

Dean threw the match into the bowl, and the spark that flew from it revealed the unmistakable silhouette of Crowley. Then the spark died down, and the harsh fluorescent lights of the parking lot illuminated his very annoyed expression.

“Hello boys. This better be the end of the world, I was in the middle of a business pitch to a very powerful associate. And it’s impolite to be summoned away in the middle of entertaining a guest.”

“Cut the crap, Crowley. It’s not the end of the world—”

“--actually it could be—” Cas interjected.

“--But it could definitely be the end of the Deep South.”

“I lost interest in the Deep South after the Jim Crow laws were eliminated,” Crowley said. “I used to get the most delightfully evil souls from the Klu Klux Klan, but unfortunately  _ somebody _ bumped them all off. Haven’t been any new recruits for a few years now.” Here he shot a look at Cas. “Georgia can go for all I care.”

“No not that part of the Deep South, the bayou. The Gulf area. Southeast Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi.”

“Oh. Well, in that case--I don’t get particularly more souls from there than I do anywhere else, but I would miss beignets. You ever been to New Orleans during Mardi Gras? You two must have had a case there at some point. And my mother has some friends in that area, she’d become even more insufferable if I let anything happen to the Big Easy. Now, what sort of rescue do you three mouseketeers need this time?”

“There’s some sort of giant Aztec monster in the Gulf.”

“Pagan gods, not my area, sorry. The few times I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with one I’ve been royally buggered.” Again he gave Cas a pointed look, and Dean wondered just how much of Cas’s past Crowley knew. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to my meeting now—”

“ _ You _ aren’t gonna be dealing with the monster, you asshat,” said Dean. “Cas has fought the thing before. And he could fight the thing again.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at this. “Cas? Fight an Aztec monster? We are talking about the same seraph here, right? Because I’m not sure how you expect that half-plucked, crippled fledgling that follows you around to take on anything remotely dangerous, much less an ancient monster. I wouldn’t waste more than one demon on taking you out anymore, Castiel. No, all the mighty Quetzalcoatl is good for nowadays is mucking out bathrooms at convenience stores.”

“You shut your mouth!” Dean found himself yelling. “You shut your goddamned mouth! That is rich, coming from someone who-who—” But Dean was so incensed he didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.

“Who what?” Crowley said. “Who nearly lost everything he had when he started spending too much time around the infamous Winchesters? At least that’s something that Feathers here and I have in common. The difference is that I, I started from nothing. The poor boy of a whore mother, to the King of Hell. But Castiel, Castiel.” Here he turned to address Cas. “You had everything, didn’t you? Your human friends here, they see you as amusing, adorable even. They think you’re socially awkward. They can’t truly appreciate how insufferable you were to work with.” He turned back to the Winchesters. “The best damned flyer in the Host, a rebel, and gorgeous to boot. That is, if you have a thing for giant feathered lizards. Not my kink, really, but you should have seen how other angels swooned over him. He may not understand human culture, but in Enochian culture he was a heartthrob. The brightest plumage, looked like a sodding peacock...long feathers, and the whip-like tail, you know seraphim go wild over that. And then he threw it all away just so that his favorite pet human could live out his Mr. and Mrs. Scrambled Eggs life with that yoga instructor and her brat. Now the other angels can barely look at you, isn’t that right, Castiel? Now you’ve got faces fit for Oprah. I can see it now— ‘Former Olympic Flyer Paralyzed, Disfigured in Desperate Bid For Purgatory’. You’re quite the tear-jerker, Castiel.”

“Dean. Dean!” Sam called, and Dean looked down to find himself practically crossing the line protecting the rest of the world from Crowley. The palms of his hands hurt, and he realized that he had been clenching his hands, so hard that he had practically drawn blood.

“Ooh, touched a nerve there, didn’t I?” Crowley grinned. “Defending your girlfriend’s honor, squirrel?”

“Cas, don’t listen to him. He only wants to get a rise,” Dean said through clenched teeth.

Crowley cocked an eyebrow at him. “Mission accomplished, apparently. Regardless, the issue still stands--looks like you’ve used up your Aztec god, boys. You’ll have to go shopping for a new one if you want to defeat Cipactli. Oh, wait, your angel killed most of them.”

“C’mon, Crowley. You know every big name in the supernatural world between Heaven and Hell,” Sam said. “You’re saying you don’t know  _ anyone _ who knows about healing angels?”

“You think that if there were a way to heal those feathered pansies they’d still be on Earth moaning about their broken wings? If the angels don’t have the medical expertise to mend their own, then just who do you think would?”

“Angels were highly specialized,” Cas said, addressing Crowley for the first time since he had been summoned. “Raphael was the Host’s chief surgeon. Many of his followers during the Civil War were of the Host’s medical branch. When I--when he and his followers were...disbanded, our healthcare system fell apart. It is possible that a lot of knowledge and skill regarding celestial anatomy was lost.”

“You’re telling me you managed to kill most of the angel doctors, Castiel? My, you’re even stupider than I thought. And that’s quite an achievement.”

“Alright, alright,” Dean interrupted, a little unnerved. When Dean thought of the culmination of Heaven’s civil war, he mostly thought of Cas releasing the Leviathans, and the havoc he had caused on Earth. It was easy to forget that Heaven had been affected far worse; it was especially distressing to hear about his best friend murdering a bunch of medics, even if they had been gearing for the End of Times 2.0. “Look, Cas has told us that there are other celestials out there, ones that aren’t angels. They have to have healthcare too, right? I mean who fixes broken wings for Chinese dragons?”

“I’m sure there are some out there, but in that case, why doesn’t our dear Castiel contact them himself? He surely has better connections with the seraphim of the east than I do.” At Cas’s abashed expression, Crowley widened his eyes dramatically. “Oh-ho, are you telling me the great Quetzalcoatl is shunned even by the seraphim in the private sector? Now that is a shame. That was the one thing you might have had that could still have made you of any use. Really, boys, I hope you had a warranty on your angel, because you’re definitely due for a replacement.”

“Crowley, either help us or get back to your ‘important transaction’,” Dean griped.

“I would absolutely return to my meeting. But unfortunately you two baboons have me in a devil’s trap.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Besides, what’s in it for me?”

“Uh, I don’t know, the Southeast U.S. doesn’t get swallowed up by an ancient sea monster?”

“Oh, please, you two know altruism isn’t really my cup of tea. Castiel, what would you be able to offer, if I arranged a meeting with someone who could heal you?”

Cas glowered. “I would rather die in agony than aid you in any more of your nefarious schemes.”

“Word to the wise, Castiel: it’s hard to hold the moral high ground after moonlighting as a dictator and war criminal. Well, there you have it, boys--your feathered friend seems uninterested.”

“No, Cas--Crowley, don’t listen to him. Think of the pros of having a fully-powered seraph in debt to you. You seriously gonna pass that up?”

“In debt to me? He’s been in debt to me since he reneged on our deal at the end of the War. Why the hell would I trust him again? They think differently than us, you know. Celestials. Ah, yes, Dean. I think that deep down, despite all that you’ve suffered in the claws of the angels, you still want to believe that they’re the “good guys”. You still identify more strongly with them than you do with demons. But let me tell you: we demons, we’re really humans, aren’t we. Just like you. Just like what you would have become, Dean, if Castiel here hadn’t been ordered to pull you off of that rack. We’re just all the naughty bits. But angels? They’re not human. They don’t think like we do. At least I know I’m a monster--angels operate on a completely different morality scale. You think Castiel is your friend? You think you know him? He’s alien, Dean. You can’t understand the things that motivate the angelic brain. He could turn on you in an instant, and would never even understand that what he had done was wrong.” Crowley paused, and the silence that filled the room in the wake of his speech was overwhelming. Finally, he sighed. “But I’ll see what I can do. Perhaps Mother will know someone. Lord knows why I help you three over and over again. Probably because if I didn’t you boys would be dead by now, and then who would save the world when the Apocalypse comes knocking again? I like existing as much as the next person.”

“Thanks, Crowley. We’ll be in your debt,” Sam said.

“You bet your arse you will be,” Crowley muttered. “Now spring me out of here.”

Dean took a step forward and scuffed out some of the paint with the toe of his boot. “Good luck in your meeting.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Right.” In the next moment, he was gone.

Dean turned to Castiel. “What a douche.” When Cas didn’t say anything, Dean said, “You know I didn’t take anything he said seriously, right? I mean all that bullshit about--look, I trust you, Cas. And you’re not an--alien. I mean, your from Heaven, not frickin’ Mars.”

“He was using the term in the classical sense, Dean. ‘Alien’ as in ‘other’. And I am, technically, extraterrestrial--extradimensional, in fact. I sometimes think you forget that.”

“Yeah, but humans make friends with other species all the time,” Sam said. “We trust you, Cas.”

Cas sighed and squinted at the stars. “When I was a human--my self tied to a human body, my emotions at the mercy of human brain chemistry--the changes made me wonder, sometimes. I don’t think I had realized up until that point how truly different the celestial mind and the human mind are. Just as humans have a natural inclination to anthropomorphize, we, too have the inclination to see other creatures as having emotions and motivations more similar to ours than they really are. Having a human brain for several months disabused me of that notion.” He turned to Sam. “I’ve hurt you both, over the years. You especially, Sam. And I just want you to know, I never--I thought I was doing what was right. Always. It never occurred to me that you two would see it differently. I know that doesn’t excuse it, but—”

“Cas,” Sam interrupted gently. “We know that.”

Dean thought Sam could speak for himself--this was certainly something that Dean himself hadn’t given much thought--but he also knew that whatever Cas was going on about, Sam was right about one thing: he had forgiven him. He had forgiven him long ago. Maybe it had been when that trenchcoat had washed up on the shore of that reservoir, or when he had walked away from a delusional Castiel intent on paying for his crimes within the walls of a mental institution, or maybe it was when he had first seen “Steve” mopping the floors of a Gas ‘n Sip.

“C’mon, buddy,” Dean said, slinging an arm around Cas’s shoulders. “Let’s go get some shut-eye.”

“I don’t need ‘shut-eye’.”

“Yeah, but us humans do. You can sit there and creepily watch over us, if it makes you feel any better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY for the long wait! I traveled twice since I last posted and had someone visit me for a week. I'll try to keep more frequent updates through this holiday season.
> 
> The Mayans never predicted an apocalypse in 2012, but they did have cycles of creation and destruction linked to the sun, which I tied to tie in there. Please let me know what you thought of Crowley's voice! It's very important to me to get the characters right.
> 
> Thanks again guys for sticking with me!!


	8. Another Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will searches for a way to heal Cas, and stumble onto a chapter of Cas's past.

Sam, Dean, and Cas spent one more day in Houston before deciding that the Tzitzimimeh truly had just been trying to send Cas a message; no more children had had their chests hollowed out and burned.

“If Crowley does actually come through,” Sam had reasoned, “We’re gonna need a place to bed down while Cas heals. We should go back to the Bunker. Besides, Cipactli could show up anywhere along the Gulf Coast; no use staying here.”

And that was how they found themselves pulling into the Bunker’s driveway two evenings after contacting Crowley.

Dean threw his duffle on the table. “Alright, I’m gonna pass out for a few hours. Let me know if Crowley decides to pay us a visit.”

“I’m gonna keep researching, just in case this turns out to not be an option.”

“Sounds good. Night.”

“Cas, would you like a room?” Sam asked.

“As I have told you multiple times, I don’t require sleep anymore.”

“Yeah, but maybe you just want a little space of your own?”

Dean, feeling like an ass for not thinking of offering first, clapped Cas on the shoulder. “Here, you can have the room next to mine. That way you can meditate, or whatever you guys do, without having to put up with Sammy’s snoring.”

When they reached what was to be Cas’s door, Dean suddenly remembered something that he had been meaning to ask. “Cas, what’s bonding?”

Cas looked startled. “What?”

“You’ve mentioned it, it came up in your stories a few times. The tzizimimeh mentioned it. What is it?”

Cas rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not really important.”

“Bullshit. Come on, Cas. It involves me. You can’t mention it as much as you have and then not expect to explain it to me.”

Cas sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I believe there are some educational books regarding Enochian customs in the library, if it interests you.”

They looked at each other for a few moments. Then Dean shrugged. “So you just don’t want to see the look on my face when I learn what it is. You realize that makes it more interesting, right?”

“No, I just know that you avoid opening a book unless you absolutely have to.”

He had a point. Dean pushed his door open. “Alright, well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Dean,” Cas responded solemnly, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

* * *

Dean was flying. He immediately recognized that this must be a dream, not because of the enormous, jade dragon whose wings beat powerfully on either side of him, but because he felt no fear of the height. They must be thousands of feet in the air, so high that the oxygen was thinning, and yet Dean did not feel dizzy at all. He somehow knew that it was the dragon that made this possible, and found himself wondering why the dragon would do such a thing. And then, as with all dreams, the answer came to him from seemingly nowhere.

“You’re Castiel,” he breathed, run a hand over the creature’s fiery mane. The emerald flames licked his fingers, but felt as cool to him as spring water (not that Dean really knew what spring water felt like. Beer fresh from the fridge, maybe?).

But as soon as he said the words, the creature--Castiel--shattered into a million pieces. The mighty monster turned out to be as fragile as glass, and suddenly it was Castiel,  _ Dean’s  _ Castiel, and Dean was falling with him.

“Dean. Dean!” Castiel was calling. “Wake up!”

“Are you dreamwalking? Dude, I didn’t know you could still do that.”

“No, Dean, wake up.”

Hands shoved roughly at him and Dean woke up with a start. “Ufh--mm, what--” He shook his head and dragged his eyes open. “Cas?”

“Crowley’s back,” Cas said, looking down at him.

Dean was up in a flash, pulling last night’s discarded pants over his boxers as he stumbled down the hallway. Crowley turned away from a disgruntled Sam when he entered the kitchen. “Hello, Squirrel.”

And Crowley wasn’t alone. Beside him stood a slim, red-headed woman clad in black, with a patch over one eye.

“Who’s she?” Dean demanded.

“Want to fill him in, Feathers?” Crowley smirked at Cas.

Cas glanced away from the newcomer to Crowley. “I don’t know.” But his brow was furrowed, as if she might be slightly familiar.

“You don’t remember me, Castiel?” The woman sauntered towards Cas, and Dean had to suppress an instinct to move between them. “But I suppose over a couple hundred thousand years you’ve probably killed many children, broken the hearts of many mothers. What’s one more?”

Castiel’s eyes widened. “Lily Sunder.”

“That’s right.” She stopped right in front of him and held his gaze.

“Okay, okay. I can see we’re having a nice little reunion here. Don’t take this the wrong way, Ms… whatever your name is, but who the hell are you?” Dean said, crossing his arms.

The woman looked at Cas expectantly. Without breaking the woman’s gaze, Cas said, “About a hundred years ago, I was in a flight under the command of an angel named Ishim--” here the woman hissed, “--and we were assigned the task of destroying a nephil forged by the union of Lily Sunder and an angel, Akobel.”

“That’s a lie!” Lily spat.

“Whoa, whoa,” Dean interrupted. “Nephil?”

“The offspring of an angel and a human,” Sam supplied.

Dean frowned. He’d forgotten about those. But he didn’t like the mental image that supplied, given what he now knew about angelic anatomy.

Before he could work out the mechanics of that, Lily said, “May wasn’t a nephil and you knew it! She was a little girl. She was my little girl, and Ishim killed her. And Akobel, he, he wasn’t…” She trailed off, her lips curling into a pained grimace.

Dean whirled on Crowley. “We ask you to help Cas and you bring someone who thinks he killed her daughter here?” He turned to Sam. “I knew we couldn’t trust this asshat.”

“You were the one who suggested him, remember?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Crowley interrupted. “What the lovely Ms, Sunder failed to mention was how she met Akobel. She was, and still is, an expert on Enochian culture and, more importantly, celestial biology.”

Dean mulled over this for a few seconds. Then he replied, “So? She still hates him.”

“True,” Crowley said. “But so do I. And so does most of Heaven and Hell combined. Hasn’t seemed to stop our dear Castiel from finding allies in the most unlikely of corners before.”

“Dude, she obviously just said yes so she could get near Cas.”

“Probably.” Crowley shrugged. “But this is the best I’ve got.”

“I came because I wanted to know,” Lily suddenly spoke up. The rest of them looked at her.

Lily squared her jaw, looking everywhere but at Castiel. “You’re right, Mr. Winchester. To a certain extent. I do hate Castiel, and I did want to finally get him, after so many years of searching, so many years…” Lily looked away, seemingly lost in thought, before continuing, “But then I heard that Castiel--of all angels--turned against Heaven. Disobeyed orders. Fell for a human. And I wanted to meet the human that could inspire Castiel to disobey orders, when the murder of an innocent child,  _ my little girl _ , could not.”

There was silence then. Finally, Dean said, “Cas, Sam. Could we have a moment? Alone?” To Crowley, he said, “Make sure she doesn’t go anywhere. Or touch anything. And that goes for you, too.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

In the library, once they were out of earshot, Dean turned to Cas. “Okay, fill us in. Who the hell is this Lily chick and what’s going on here? You killed her daughter?” Much as Dean wanted to dismiss her story as impossible, Dean had seen Cas hunt down a child before. The Antichrist. Who had just turned out to be an innocent boy, unaware of his role in the fate of the world.

It was easy to forget the impassive soldier that Cas used to be. That he apparently had been for millennia before Sam and Dean were ever born.

Cas shifted uncomfortably. “My captain at the time, Ishim--he informed us that one of our brothers, Akobel, had conceived a nephil--that’s a mortal/celestial hybrid--with a professor of apocalyptic literature. That would be Lily Sunder. We were tasked with executing Akobel and destroying the nephil. When we visited their domicil, back around the turn of the twentieth century, I restrained Akobel and pronounced his crime and sentence, while one of my flight mates, Mirabel, performed the execution. Ms. Sunder attempted to flee with the nephil, but Ishim pursued her and slayed the creature.”

Sam put his hands on his hips and pursed his lips. Dean frowned. “Wait, this was in the early 1900s? How is she still around?”

Castiel’s brow furrowed. “From what I can see of her soul, it is tainted. With Enochian magic. She must have been keeping herself alive all these years with it. And it’s destroying her soul in the process.”

“Damn. That’s one hell of a revenge mission. She must  _ really  _ hate you. Okay, well, Crowley was right. She is our only option right now, so we better get back in there. Sam and I just needed to know the context.”

Castiel nodded and squared his shoulders as if going into battle. For all they knew he was. He walked back into the kitchen, with Sam and Dean close behind.

“So,” Dean began, awkwardly. Where should they go from here? They had a demon that hated them and a woman who probably wanted to kill Cas as their only chance at healing him. Were they supposed to just ask nicely?

Then Dean remembered something. “Lily, you said your kid wasn’t a nephil?”

“No,” Lily spat. “That was just the lie that Ishim and his flight spun to justify her murder.”

As cold as Castiel could be back in the old days, that didn’t sound right. Dean glanced at Castiel, who was looking very confused. “Ms. Sunder, I never laid eyes on your daughter. I didn’t know you. What reason would I have to harm you or your...offspring, other than the one I have stated?”

“Oh, don’t take me for a fool!” Lily said, raising her voice. “Ishim, he had this, this...sick fascination with me, he made it clear he desired me in ways unbefitting an Angel of the Lord. When I bonded with Akobel, he couldn’t accept that another angel was closer to me than he was! And you were his accomplices!”

“What? You were bonded to Akobel?”

“Of course!”

“Ishim informed us that he had taken you as his wife!”

“No!” The syllable came out as something between a growl and a wail. “She was my daughter! My human daughter. Her father was my late husband. May was born before I ever met Akobel.”

“That can’t be,” Castiel protested, but his face fell in horror as he spoke. “Ishim wouldn’t--he said--”

“What reason would I have to lie to you now? She’s already dead. She’s been dead a hundred years, now. And so is my angel, for that matter.”

“Ms. Sunder--I didn’t know--”

“She’s dead, whether you knew or not.”

There was silence for a long time. Finally, Crowley said, “Well, if you were looking to kill him, I’m afraid you’ve made a total hash of it. The short, feisty one next to Castiel won’t let you touch a feather on his crest now that he knows what your about.”

“So that’s the Righteous Man. I was wondering which one it was.”

She walked up to Castiel until her face was less than a foot from his.

“Hey--” Dean started.

“It’s okay, Dean,” Castiel said, not looking at him, but holding Lily’s gaze. Then, to Dean’s shock, and apparently everyone else’s, Castiel held out his angel blade to her, hilt first.

“Cas, what the fuck--”

“Something about Ishim always sat wrong with me,” Castiel said. “And I knew Akobel since we were fledglings. When Ishim told us, I could hardly believe it…”

“But a soldier never disobeys orders,” Lily finished for him, an odd, almost understanding tone in her voice.

“My blind obedience cost you the life of your child and your angel,” Cas said. “You have every right to seek revenge on me.”

Lily took the blade thoughtfully, running a finger along its silver surface. “Left middle foreclaw?” she asked, looking back up at Castiel.

“Index,” Castiel corrected.

“Ah. I’m getting rusty.” After a pause, she said, “You really didn’t know, did you.”

Cas shook his head gravely.

Lily looked at Dean. “I know what it’s like to have my angel murdered in front of me. I won’t do that to you,” she said, and handed the blade back to Castiel. “I just wished you’d rebelled sooner,” she said to him.

Cas took the blade back, a sorrowful look in his eyes.

“So, I’ve been informed that if Castiel is healed, he may have a chance of vanquishing Cipactli.”

“You know about Ci...that Aztec crocodile thing?” Dean asked.

“Of course, I was an expert in apocalyptic literature and celestial species. And not just Judeo-Christian examples. I know who he is,” Lily said, hitching her chin at Cas.

Dean made an indignant sound. “Did everyone know Cas was an Aztec god except me?”

“Well, I mean, I didn’t either,” Sam reminded him.

“I’ll do what I can, on one condition,” Lily said.

“Seriously?” Crowley griped. “I brought you here to kill him, not…” He shook his head.

“What’s your condition,” Dean asked.

“You help me locate and exact revenge on Ishim.”

“Done.”

Castiel, however, looked reluctant. “Ms. Sunder, I appreciate your position, and I regret my part in your tragedy more than you know. But...I’ve already taken the lives of so many of my people, in many misguided attempts to do what I thought was right. I can’t be responsible for anymore, even...even after what he did. I’m sorry.”

“Not up to you, Cas,” Dean said. “If you won’t help her I will.”

Cas began to protest, but Lily interrupted him. “If it’s the possible extinction of the seraphim you’re worried about, Castiel...yes, I know about the plight of your species. And we may yet be able to save them.”

“Our…” Castiel shot an embarrassed look at Sam and Dean. “Reproduction is normally suppressed by Heaven, to prevent overpopulation. No fledglings have been produced in eons. Now that Raphael is gone and the angelic healers with him, no one knows…”

“How to reverse that little piece of biological engineering? I might. Akobel was a healer, remember?”

Cas looked too hopefully stunned to respond, so Dean rubbed his hands together. “So, it’s settled. You heal Cas, and we’ll help you track down Ishim.”

“Oh, for Christ’s--” Crowley began. “Well, this wasn’t half the fun I expected it to be.”

“See you around, Crowley,” Dean said drily.

Crowley raised a hand impatiently and disappeared.

“So where do we start?” Sam asked.

* * *

A few minutes later they were seated in the kitchen, each with a beer in hand.

“Well, first I’ll need to assess the damage,” Lily said. “Determine whether it’s something I can even fix.”

“Well…” Dean looked at Cas. “You need a room? We can take care of this right now.”

“No,” Lily said. “I will need to observe him in his true form.”

Sam blinked. “Um. The last person who did that lost her eyes.”

“There are two things that together cause humans to be unable to view a celestial safely in their true form. One, and most importantly, they are not native to this dimension. Imagine two-dimensional geometric shapes drawn on a piece of paper attempting to comprehend the three-dimensional form of a human. It’s simply impossible, and your brain short-circuits in the attempt to comprehend it.”

Sam nodded his head in interest. “Whatever you say,” Dean said.

“The second is simply because the celestial is too bright. They are actually closely related to solar entities and other such phenomena, and they emit a dangerous level of heat and light in their true forms. Fledglings don’t, but once they mature, humans can no longer look upon them without losing their sight.”

“And…? Doesn’t seem like either of those are easily solvable problems.”

“There exists two substances that can mitigate these problems. The first, taken by the celestial, dims its natural light emission. The second, designed to open the human’s mind, is taken by the human, obviously. It was just invented this century, actually. It’s called lysergic acid diethylamide.”

“Lysergic acid...you want us to take LSD?” Dean asked. He turned to Sam in order to share a look of disbelief, but Sam looked not at all shocked. If anything, he looked mildly interested.

“Huh. I never thought about that. I guess it opens your mind to experiences that would seem impossible under normal circumstances?”

“Exactly. Children can usually see angels more easily, because they are less rigid in their understanding of how physical laws work. But as adults, you will need a little assistance.”

“Sam. Dude. LSD, seriously?” Looking at Sam’s faintly amused expression, he said, “Wait, you haven’t…”

“Dude,  _ I _ went to college remember? You aren’t always the coolest brother.”

Dean sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Guess we’re doin’ LSD.” He turned to Cas. “Thanks for the excuse.”

Cas looked at him blankly. Dean shook his head. “Alright, we’ve got a few errands to run.”

* * *

It turned out that Lily had “contacts” regarding whatever Cas was gonna have to down. Dean was pretty sure he didn’t trust  _ that _ , but again, they didn’t have much of a choice. And besides, one of Crowley’s subordinates was going to be supplying the Dean and Sam’s concoction, so all things considered Cas was probably getting the better deal.

Now Dean was lying in his bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. He had actually been pretty worried about the whole “Cas’s-arch-enemy-feeding-him-some-unkownn-magical-substance” thing. He’d even cornered Cas outside his room about it, but Cas had seemed very unphased about the whole situation. Of course, Cas could be pretty naive--his track record for trusting the wrong person was pretty impressive. But his reaction this time had seemed different. When Dean had questioned him on it, his eyes had been shifty, and they had never once met Dean’s. He hadn’t been as sure, as self-righteous as he had been with Metatron, or even his ill-fated alliance with Crowley.

Did he also think it was a bad idea?

If so, why was he so adamant on going through with it?

Dean sighed and rolled over. He knew the answer to that. Cas was always willing to throw himself in harm’s way--especially if he felt it was some sort of penance for some of his stupider decisions. It sometimes unnerved Dean how willing Cas was to sacrifice himself on a whim. Sam and Dean put themselves in danger on the daily, of course, but not in the same way that Cas did. For Cas suicide missions weren’t a last resort; they were Plan A. But then, that was the way of the angels, wasn’t it? The more dealings Dean had with them, the more he saw that kind of behavior--that unthinking obedience. They were tools of heaven. No autonomy. No self-worth. And the ones that did have any semblance of self-preservation and personal thought usually ended up being raving megalomaniacal lunatics, Cas included.

The difference with Cas was that he didn’t kamikaze in the service of the Almighty; he did so in the service of the Winchesters.

Dean threw back the covers and padded down to the kitchen. Maybe a good therapy session with Dr. Jack Daniels would help him get to sleep.

Lily Sunder sat at the table, staring at the pages of an old tome.

Dean stopped and looked at her for a moment, then went to the cupboard anyways. “It’s three in the morning,” he commented as he pulled an acceptably clean glass out.

Without looking at him, Lily said. “Yes. Why are you up?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I’m guessing that’s why you’re down here?”

“Can’t sleep. Haven’t been capable of it in years.” She twisted in her seat to look at him. “Enochian magic.”

Right. Cas had said that she had been dabbling in the angelic arts. “Shitty side effect.”

Lily arched her eyebrows in agreement. And turned back around.

Dean sat across the table from her and said, in the most casual voice he could muster, “That’s a lot to go through for revenge.”

Lily studied him, then said, “You’re worried I’m going to poison your angel.”

“Uh, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but…”

“No, I would too in your situation. And to be honest, I did consider it for all of ten seconds. But I won’t attempt to prove my intentions to you, because I have no proof. So you’ll just have to trust me. Or not. It’s up to you.”

Dean nodded. “It’ll be good to see him healthy again.”

“I bet you were pretty worried for him,” Lily said.

Dean took a swig of the dark liquid. “That’s the only reason I’m letting him go through with this. Though to be honest, I didn’t realize he was...you know, I knew his wings were broken, but I didn’t realize the rest of it until a couple days ago.”

Lily arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t?”

“Well, you know, not everyone has been using Enochian magic for a century. I can’t see him in his true form.”

“No, I can’t either, I just...I assumed he would have told you. My angel and I trusted each other with everything.”

“Okay, so now that you’ve mentioned that...will somebody tell me what all this “bond” stuff is? What do you mean by ‘my angel’? Cas has mentioned ‘his human’ before and some other people have too, but no one will clue me in on what they’re talking about. Least of all Cas.”

Dean had been prepared for some snide ribbing from this stone-cold woman, and at least one more arched eyebrow. What he hadn’t been prepared for was for Lily to freeze and look up again from her book with an expression of utter shock. “What do you mean? You don’t know?”

“What? This ‘bond’ thing? No. But I’m starting to gather it’s pretty important.”

Lily blinked at him a few times, as if she were trying to figure out what to say. “You...how did you two meet again? I heard through the supernatural grapevine that he rescued you from Perdition.”

“Yeah, about six, seven years ago now? I got the impression he was doing it on orders.”

“He was,” Lily agreed slowly. “But that’s often how it starts.”

Dean frowned. Lily sighed and closed her book. “Bonding is an ancient tradition. Not a tradition, really--a natural drive that God placed in all celestials and all sentient mortals. When God first experimented with mortal life, He wasn’t at all sure that he would be able to reproduce the sentience he had endowed celestial creatures with in flesh and blood, in the carbon-based creatures he formed from the stuff of the planets. And there was a trade-off. There always is. The more capable of using free will a creature is, the less in tune it is with nature. It doesn’t feel God’s will or the will of His Creation in the same way that creatures of the wild do. He knew that man would need to be able to form bonds with other species if it were to survive. And we do. We formed our first interspecies relationship thousands of years ago, with the wolf. But what most humans don’t realize is that there was another species before that. An older species.

“God placed in celestials and sentient mortals alike the innate desire to bond with an individual of the other species, as a sort of trial run for when mortals would have to work with other species to survive. It’s not a choice, it simply...happens. It’s sort of like...did you ever have a dog when you were a boy?”

Dean shook his head. “We were on the road ever since I was four. No place for a pooch.”

“Well, you missed out. But you know how sometimes a boy and a dog will just sort of...imprint on each other? They share some sort of deep bond, even though they are from different species? And they will go on all sorts of boyhood adventures together?”

“Are you saying Cas is Lassie and I’m Timmy?”

“Something like that. Didn’t you ever wonder why there are so many stories involving a warrior and his dragon?”

“Not really.”

“Hmm. Well, I did. In fact, it was the concept of a personal ‘guardian angel’ that first got me interested in studying angels. And then, of course, I met my own.”

“You met--you mean that angel that Cas killed?” Dean winced; probably not the best idea to bring it up if he didn’t have to.

Lily nodded with a wry smile. “Yes, Akobel was my angel. He wasn’t my husband.”

Dean blinked. “So, you know, a lot of jokes get tossed around about Cas and me…”

“It’s normal. Try to ignore it. If they saw his true form, they wouldn’t make those jokes.”

“Well, Crowley probably still would. Wait. Does he know…?”

“Everybody knows. Everybody except you, it would seem.”

“Well, how was I supposed to?”

“I don’t know, I would have thought it was pretty obvious.”

“But he never told me about any of this? What, did it just slip his mind?” That was a stupid question, come to think of it. Cas had a perennial habit of lying to Dean about his personal matters. But, c’mon…

Lily shrugged and opened her book again. “I’ve no idea. You should probably ask him,” she said without looking up.

Dean frowned, took his empty glass over to the sink and washed it out. “Well, I’m turning in. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“Indeed.”

Dean felt a nagging, stressed feeling as he walked back to his room. His foray into the kitchen hadn’t done anything to allay his nighttime ruminations--quite the contrary.

So, he and Cas were Bonded. With a capital B.

_ Dean and I do share a more profound bond. I wasn’t gonna mention it. _

At the time, Dean had been embarrassed. Why did Cas always have to go saying that kind of stuff? In front of his little brother, no less?

But now he was...sort of pissed.  _ Why didn’t you mention it, Cas? _

It wasn’t like Dean was completely comfortable with the idea. Imprinting? It sounded like something out of a bad supernatural romance novel. But apparently it wasn’t romantic. So that was okay, then. Right? Lily had compared it to a boy and his dog, and that was acceptably masculine. So it was okay, right? So why would Cas keep it on the down-low, seeing as he normally had no sense of social norms?  _ Why hadn’t he told him? _

A cold thought seeped into the back of Dean’s mind, and once there, it spread throughout his brain until it was all he could focus on. And it wasn’t a very happy thought.

_ Maybe Cas regretted it. _

_ It’s not a choice _ , Lily had said.  _ It just happens. _

Maybe Cas thought he had gotten a shit draw, and so didn’t want to draw attention to it. Dean could understand it--a once in a lifetime deal, it sounded like. And for Cas, that was a pretty long time. And Dean was the human he got?

It wasn’t like Cas and he had gotten along at first. In fact, Cas had seemed to spend time around him only begrudgingly, in the line of duty. It was only after a couple of years that Cas had seemed to follow him around. Perhaps at that point he’d accepted the inevitable, and was trying to make do with what he’d gotten. With the way he’d treated Cas over the years, he wouldn’t blame him.

Cas’s face swam into his thoughts. He looked slightly unkempt, smaller, as if he was curled in on himself. His eyes were drawn into that awful puppy-dog look he sometimes managed to pull, that never failed to cause a strange twisting feeling in Dean’s chest. And then there was Dean’s voice.

_ You can’t stay here. _

He had looked Cas in the eye. He had looked  _ his dragon, his angel  _ in the eye, and thrown him out on the streets.

How would he be able to look Cas in all his eyes tomorrow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no...it's been two months since I updated. I am so sorry y'all. My holidays were packed with fun family times. I should start updating more regularly from now on, I swear. That is, if anyone's still reading...
> 
> So, LSD. I've never actually taken it, so I'm relying on first-hand accounts and interviews with people who have. From what I've heard, everyone's experience is pretty different, so please let me know how I've done in the next chapter. But I figured if there were any substance that would allow a human to see into another dimension it would probably be that one.
> 
> Just in case anyone's nervous, no, I'm not getting into angelic reproduction. If I decide to mess with that it would be in a totally different fic. But I felt like Cas had to be reassured before he was involved in any more angel-killing.
> 
> I'll get back to the Quetzalcoatl storyline at some point, but I'm trying to have it track with the plot in the present, and there's gonna be a few chapters devoted to the present for a while. Thanks for sticking with me guys!


	9. Lily and the Sacred Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas has a check-up.

When Dean walked into the kitchen next morning, he was once again greeted by a solitary figure at the table--but this time it was Cas. Clad in his usual attire, he sat with his back ramrod straight against the wooden chair. His eyes were focused, but on what Dean couldn’t tell. He looked as if he were at attention, but his lower half hadn’t figured that out yet.

“Doesn’t look like a really comfortable position there, buddy.”

Cas’s eyes snapped to Dean. “Hello, Dean.”

“Did I actually manage to catch you off guard?”

“No.”

“Of course not. Guess it would be hard to miss me with all those eyes, huh? Which I’m gonna get to see today!”

Cas frowned and tilted his head. “It’s not customary for you to exude such false cheer. Is there anything wrong?”

Dean gave a tight chuckle. “No. Nope. Just, uh, you know, never dropped acid before. I usually stick to Jim, Jack, Johnny, and José.”

Cas tilted his head more. “I’ve never met them. Are they fellow hunters?”

Dean laughed out loud at that. “Alcohol, Cas.” He pulled a carton of eggs out of the freezer, set it on the counter. Then he turned around. “Fuck it. Cas, I think we’ve kept enough secrets from each other to last us a lifetime. Lily explained what Bonding was to me. Last night.”

Cas’s face was unreadable. And of course Dean had no idea what the expression on his real faces were. “Oh,” he said simply.

After about five seconds of uncomfortable staring, Dean cleared his throat. “So, uh...we’re uh...like, metaphysically attached. Lily said something about um, it being like, a boy and a dog?” At Cas’s raised eyebrow, Dean said, “You know, forget I said that. C’mon, Cas, why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Dean, it...it isn’t important.”

“Not important? Well then what the hell is it? If it’s so not important then why didn’t you just let me know about it?”

Cas shrank back from Dean’s sudden vitriol, and Dean calmed himself down. “Look, dude, I just...I like to know when I’m involved in something. Especially something that’s so important to my...to you.”

Cas opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment Sam decided to stumble into the kitchen. He ran a hand through his hair and yawned. “What’s up, guys? You ready for this, Cas?”

Cas nodded grimly.

“Hey, buddy, it’s just a check-up. Us humans are supposed to get one once a year,” Dean said.

“Yeah, shut up Dean, you haven’t had one since high school. And considering the amount you drink we should probably change that.”

“I figure I’m in the hospital enough that if my liver were about to fail they’d catch it.”

“You really should see a physician, Dean,” Cas said. “I’ve had to clean out your liver and arteries multiple times.”

“You’ve had to...wait, what? You’ve been digging in my internal organs without permission?”

“Well, I figured it was easier to do that than convince you to change your lifestyle. But, Dean, you have to start taking care of yourself,” Cas implored. “Nowadays, I hardly have the power to heal external damage, much less long-term build-up internally. And I--I would like to keep you alive as long as possible.”

Dean had been gearing up to give Cas a lecture on boundaries, but he was suddenly struck by the thought of Cas, all alone, standing by a pyre. His pyre. Because one day, he would die.

But if all went well (which was an admittedly big if), Cas never would.

He had existed hundreds of millions of years before Dean had been born, and he had the potential to live billions of years after Dean’s body inevitably failed. Even if he was lucky enough to die of old age.

A much more positive, though heart-breaking, explanation for Cas’s reluctance to talk about Bonding occurred to Dean. After all, he was exiled from his home, and Sam and Dean were definitely on the angelic shit-list. Who knew where they would go when they finally kicked it? Maybe he just didn’t want to get too attached.

_ Now who’s the human and who’s the dog in  _ that  _ metaphor? _ Dean thought.

He clapped Cas on the shoulder. “Well then, we’ll just have to fix you up again, won’t we? Cuz I am  _ not _ giving up bacon  _ or _ beer.”

Cas gave a wry smile.

A sharp rapping at the door interrupted them. “Crowley,” Sam said, getting up to open it, but Lily appeared at that moment, hurrying up the stairs to the door. She threw it open and caught the newcomer under the neck with the point of her blade. A moment later she dropped it and stepped aside.

“Touchy, aren’t we,” Crowley said, traipsing in through the door and down the stairs. “If she’s like that all the time I can’t imagine that our feathery friend made it through the night. Oh, damn,” he said, taking in the sight of Cas. “You’re still here. Foiled again. Well, in that case…” He pulled out a small tupperware with three scraps of paper in it.

“That the acid?” Dean asked.

“Indeed. And I’m assuming that Miss Sunder here has Castiel’s elixir?”

Lily nodded. “I just finished making it. It’s in the library.”

“And you have experience with LSD?”

“I’ll be their guide, yes.”

“Right. Then I’ll be off. Let me know if you manage to kill the crocodile. And don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“I thought we’d be having to push you out the door,” Sam said.

“Trip-sit you two before getting my eyes burned out by your overgrown pigeon? No thanks. Goodbye, boys.” And with that he walked back up the stairs and closed the door behind him.

“Right,” Lily said. “Everyone packed?”

* * *

Cas’s check-up would have to take place out in a field “large enough to accommodate him”, Lily had said, and away from any potential prying eyes. Fortunately this was Kansas, so a field out in the countryside wasn’t too hard to come by. A few dozen miles down the road Dean pulled off to the side, just a little bit behind the underbrush that led into the forest. They would just have to hope that no one stopped to scope out the car.

All four of them carried backpacks full of supplies--water, food, weapons, and of course a whole host of strange ingredients and tools that Lily was going to use to study Cas’s injuries. The sun was pretty high in the sky by the time they reached the meadow.

Dean laid his pack down on the ground and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Perfect,” he said, taking in the space. The treeline on the opposite side of the meadow had to be at least two miles away. “Think this’ll be enough space to spread your wings, Cas?”

Cas looked around him. “How will we ensure that no other humans enter here?”

“You can’t just make a fold in space-time?” Lily asked, her brow furrowed.

Castiel looked abashed. “Um. I haven’t been able to warp space-time since the...the Leviathans.”

Fold space-time? Holy shit. Dean didn’t even know regular angels could do that. Or seraphim, or whatever. But the way Lily sucked in her breath involuntary at the news made Dean realize that perhaps that wasn’t so impressive for an angel.

“Hey, ever heard of bedside manner?” Dean said to her. “You’re supposed to  _ not _ try to show if you’re freaked out by their injuries.”

“Yes, thank you, Dean,” Cas said curtly.

“Sorry,” Dean muttered.

“Okay guys,” Sam interrupted. “How  _ do _ we conceal this place, then?”

“I can do it,” Lily said. “Not like my soul can’t take a little more damage, anyways.” She bent down and flipped the locks on one of her cases. Upon the soft velvet inside was a single item, slender, at least three feet long. It’s size was such that it took Dean a few seconds to realize it was a feather.

“The hell kind of bird did that come from? A pterodactyl?”

“Something like that,” Lily said. Dean watched the careful way that Lily ran a cloth down the white-gold vane of the feather, and then he realized:

“That’s an angel’s feather, isn’t it?”

“It’s Akobel’s,” Lily said. She took a knife and slit her palm, allowing the droplets of blood to flow into the hollow shaft of the feather.

“It’s--hey, Lily, you don’t have to use up one of his--”

“It won’t be used up in a spell, no. The spell only requires that I draw a line in the ground with an angelic quill and human blood as my ink. Many such spells are more potent if the blood and feather come from a Bonded pair. That is one of the reasons I have taken very good care of his remaining feathers all these years.”

Dean could guess what the other reason was. He glanced at Cas, who was resolutely looking at his shoes again. “Our...our Bond could have helped us with some spells and you still didn’t think to mention it?”

Cas sighed. “Dean…”

“Whatever, let’s just get on with it.” He was anxious to get this over with--he wanted to know the extent of Cas’s injuries as soon as possible, and whether they could be healed.

And truth be told he was anxious to see Cas’s true form in the first place. It suddenly registered that he would be seeing Cas for the first time. His best friend, his angel. They had fought by each other’s side for years. Gone through betrayals and forgiveness, wars and peace, even a few deaths at this point. And yet he had never once seen Cas for real. He was talking to an avatar, really; just a profile picture on a screen, one that wasn’t even a real photo. He knew less about what Castiel really looked like than some girls he had liked on Tinder, and in the age of Photoshop that was saying something.

“Alright,” Lily said, standing with a mason jar of white, frothing liquid and the tupperware of acid. “Both the celestial coolant and the LSD will take some time to take effect, so it would be best if you take it now. I’ll set up wards around the perimeter while we wait.”

As she handed the Mason jar to Castiel, Dean asked, “Why is it steaming? You’d think an angel-cooler would be more on the frozen end.”

“It’s only a liquid at extremely cold temperatures,” Lily explained. “It boils at room temperature. Or meadow temperature, as it were.”

“Like nitrogen?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” Lily said, “except a lethal quantity of nitrogen would be required to cool an adult seraph. We need something that will work faster.”

“Lethal? I didn’t realize anything non-magical could be used to gank an angel,” Dean said. “Wish I’d known that before, could have come in handy. Sorry,” he said at the look Cas shot him.

“Like I told you last night, Dean, celestials are closely related to solar entities. Some elements, in great enough quantities, and by that I mean more than thousands of times the mass of the Earth, can decrease the rate of the reactions in stars. Too much will cause the star to explode, but just the right amount...but anyways, it actually has nothing to do with temperature.”

“But if it’s not nitrogen, what is it?” Sam asked.

“An element not available in this universe, or in any universes with similar physics,” Lily said nonchalantly. “I have a contact in the neighboring one that gives it to me on short-order. You can’t keep it here for long, so it has to be used right away.”

“Different...universes? So the multiverse theory is correct?” Sam asked.

“That’s the only way in which any of them are correct, but yes, essentially.”

“Wait, how do you--”

“Okay, you can nerd out to her while you’re tripping,” Dean said. “Let’s get a move on, I don’t want to leave Baby out by the road overnight and we’re burning daylight, speaking of stars.”

Cas downed the steaming drink. He handed the empty jar back to Lily. “I can feel the reactions already.”

“You’ll be feeling it a lot more before the top of the hour,” Lily said, stuffing the jar into her pack. “Now, boys,” she said, opening the tupperware, “Remember what I said yesterday during dinner? What you expect going in will largely affect your experience and your ability to see Castiel. I would tell you not to go in with expectations, but I know that’s impossible. In fact, I would ask that you think on the things you have heard about Castiel’s true form; it will most likely help open your mind to the possibility of what you are going to see. It will take about a half hour or more to set in. Whenever I take it, I notice the distortion of light first. The proportions of your surroundings may start to fluctuate; scientists attribute that to hallucination, but you are really starting to see the other universes that overlap this area, and their differing physics are blending with those of our own. Castiel is in the neighboring dimension; it should be around then that you start to see him.”

“Yeah, yeah, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to get wasted to see a monster--no offense, Cas. Sam, remember that Japanese spirit we had to get drunk to see a few years ago? Yeah, good times.”

“Yeah, LSD is a little different, Dean,” Sam said.

“Hey, you’re not nervous, are you?” Dean asked.

“No, but I’m beginning to think with all your big talk you are, jerk.”

“Bitch.”

“Alright, alright. Children,” Lily huffed, holding the tupperware out to Dean.

“Well, here goes,” Dean said, picking one of the scraps of paper out carefully between a thumb and forefinger. He placed it on his tongue. “So…” he said carefully around the tab, “do I just leave it here, then?”

“You can swallow it,” Lily said.

Dean swallowed. Sam picked his out next and did the same. Lily took the last one, popping it in her mouth as she picked up Akobel’s feather.

“By the time I get done with the whole perimeter it should start to take effect. Call me if there are any problems.” She turned toward the treeline, dipping the quill in the ground and dragging it through the moist dirt, muttering an incantation under her breath as she did so.

“Damn, that looks like a pain in the ass job,” Dean said as he watched her work.

Sam sat on the cooler of water, tapping his foot lightly. Cas had redonned his distant expression from that morning.

“You okay, Cas? Getting colder yet?” Dean asked, concerned.

“A little, yes,” Cas said.

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“No. It’s just...disconcerting.”

Dean raised his eyebrows and nodded. He lowered himself to the grass with a groan and began pulling out blades.

After about five minutes, he said, “Like we were saying this morning, Cas, it’s just a check-up. If you were human and weren’t gonna burn our eyes out this would take less than an hour. No big deal.”

“I know.”

“Hey, how come the Mayans and Aztecs could see you and we have to take acid?”

“They couldn’t, remember? With the exception of my vessel, they only ever saw an approximation I built out of natural elements.”

“Then, couldn’t you just do that?”

“Would you send a cardboard cutout of yourself to the doctor’s in your stead?”

“Good point. Huh. So all those worshippers didn’t get to see the real deal, but we do. Guess we should feel honored.”

He was waiting for Cas to raise his chin. To take him seriously, in that infuriating way of his. To say something along the lines of, “Yes, you should. It is a rare honor to be bestowed upon a mortal…” In short, he was waiting for the old Castiel.

But the now Castiel, he just looked down at Jimmy Novak’s dress shoes. Dean noticed how well worn they were. Of course, they were probably all he had had, those first few months of homelessness. Shoes were expensive.

“Hey, Cas. What is it? You’ve been looking green all day.”

Castiel looked down at himself quickly, then back to Dean. “Green? You shouldn’t be able to see my true form yet. Has it taken effect already?”

“No, I mean, you look like you’re gonna vomit. Dude, you look nervous. What is it? Cuz I know it’s not that you’re afraid of the doctor.” Although, with this one, it was probably justified.

Cas sighed. It was a very human gesture, and Dean realized that it must have been at least partly conscious. In fact, everytime Cas made a human expression, or used human body language it all, it was probably simply for their benefit. At least at first it must have been. He had always thought of Cas as so stoic, almost humorously so. But how many expressions had played out on the faces that Dean couldn’t see? How much had Dean missed?

“I…” Cas started, then paused as if considering how to phrase his words. “Dean, do you remember that day, in the gas station?”

Dean wasn’t sure what he was talking about. They’d been on a hell of a lot of road trips together, and even more gas stations.

“The Gas ‘n Sip?” Dean said uneasily. He really didn’t want to get into Cas’s period of homelessness (and Dean’s period of douchery) right before his first acid trip. Wasn’t exactly conducive to a calm mindset.

Cas shook his head quickly. “No. Not that one. Well, it was a Gas ‘n Sip, but not when I was human. Before that.”

Oh.

That was so long ago...over six years. Before he had even “met” Cas, really. In some ways, it was difficult to believe it had been six years. Six years since he had risen from the grave. Longer than that since Dad had died. Since Sammy had died, that first time…

But on the other hand, it was hard to imagine a time in which he had not known Castiel. Everything they’d been through together, all the apocalypses they’d averted (and, to be fair, started). It seemed he had known him his whole life.

“Yeah,” he said, feigning nonchalance. “That time I nearly lost my eardrums.”

Cas’s downcast expression made Dean regret his words. “Yes, I apologize for that,” Cas said. “If I’d known...It used to be that a mortal could always see the true form of their celestial Bond. But over the centuries, human knowledge progressed. Which is in many ways a good thing. But gradually most humans closed their minds to what they couldn’t believe, and eventually even Bonded mortals lose their ability to see their celestial. That’s the way it is with all mortal sentients. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was disappointing nonetheless.”

“All mortal sentients? There are other sentient species out there?” Sam asked. “And they can Bond with angels?”

“Of course, all creatures who have reached a certain level of sentience have the ability to bond with a celestial,” Cas said. “And the universe is over fourteen billion years old; humans certainly aren’t the first to achieve sentience. You aren’t even the first species on Earth to do so. Uriel, for example, was Bonded with a theropod who has been in Heaven ever since the asteroid hit the Earth sixty-six million years ago...oh...I never gave him my condolences for Uriel’s death…” Cas’s face fell even further.

“Yeah, well any dino Bonded to Uriel’s probably a douchebag anyways,” Dean said. “But you still haven’t explained what’s got your feathers in a twist.”

“I was...well, it was...disappointing to know that you would never see me. Never really see me.” Dean must have a made a face, because Cas promptly said, “Obviously I don’t blame you, Dean, it’s just the way the winds blow. All these years I’ve harbored this...this little fantasy if you will...I know it’s silly…”

“It’s not silly at all, Cas,” Sam said gently. Dean felt a spark of gratitude for Sam, because his throat had suddenly inexplicably closed up.

“I was wrong for what I said in the motel,” Cas said, looking away to the treeline. “From the moment I rebelled in the first Apocalypse, you two have been my own family. And I have wished so much that you could really see me. But not like this.”

Dean wanted to tell Cas that that was bullshit. That it didn’t matter if he was scarred now, that it didn’t matter if his wings were all fucked up, if he was missing a few eyes. But he knew that anything he said now would come out harsh and angry. Even it wasn’t really Cas he was angry with. So he let Sam handle it.

“Cas, I’m not gonna say I understand, because I don’t really, not from experience,” Sam said, still in that gentle tone. “But I sympathize. And I know it’s gotta hurt. But remember, we’ve never seen an angel before. We don’t have anything to compare you to. We’re just little humans, remember? We’re gonna be impressed no matter what.” He gave a kind smile.

Cas returned a forced one. “I appreciate it.”

Dean saw motion in the corner of his eye and turned. Lily had just finished her round about the field, and was walking back towards them. Her gait was odd--every once in a while she made a high step, as if in a marching band. At one point she even seemed to mime scrambling over something, and Dean was shocked to see her feet actually leaving the ground.

_ Must be the LSD _ , Dean thought. He squinted at her feet, to see what was causing her little dance. But it was hard to focus in on the ground; the sunlight streaming into the meadow was painting strange patterns across the waving grass, obscuring his view. It took him about five whole seconds to question this state of affairs. He thought he remembered the sky being a clear blue. No clouds--then what was causing the different patterns? Like a dumbass, he looked directly up at the sun, getting an eyeful of pain for his troubles.

He looked back at Lily. The patterns of light were stronger now--visible rays lighting up the dust motes in the air. And they weren’t exactly the yellow-white light of the sun. They had an almost...green tint to them. And red. “Huh huh,” Dean chuckled. “Christmas. Sam, look. Christmas lights.” He turned to nudge Sam and point out the weird patterns, but Sam was already looking at Lily. His mouth was hanging open.

“Dude, you look...like a fish.” Dean followed his brother’s gaze back to Lily, and the fresh perspective made him realize that she was actually clambering  _ over _ the rays of light. Every time she reached a beam, she stepped over it, or climbed if necessary. And the light was  _ holding her up _ .

“Son of a  _ bitch _ ,” Dean said slowly, his mouth dropping open to mirror Sam’s. The lights were dancing, converging into different shapes, curving impossibly. Thin tendrils of teal light flowed around him. “Dude, what the fuck,” he yelped, scrambling to his feet. He followed the tendrils of light with his eyes. They all seemed to link back to a single larger strand that would have spanned the length of Baby. They had a pattern. One beam, with many smaller beams branching out at regular intervals along it. They all went the same direction--angling out towards the tip. The pattern looked familiar.

Feather.

The light was in the pattern of a feather. The size of his car. He hadn’t recognized it at first due to the sheer size. His eyes tracked to the shaft of the feather, where it flowered out into a stream of emerald light. That stream joined two other streams just like it into a ray easily the width of a six-lane highway. It coiled around and around, around and around. Dean twisted around with it, he couldn’t take in all of it at once, where did it end?

And then he looked up.

Looming over him were four monstrous crystalline heads, towering far, far above the treetops. They would have blotted out the sun, but they didn’t cast a shadow--instead they seemed to be emitting their own ethereal light. Each one was supported by a long, sturdy neck that swayed in the breeze. No, not swaying in the breeze; they were moving independently. And one of them was swiftly plummeting down, down, right towards Sam and Dean, it would devour them, there was nothing they could do, nowhere to run…

The head stopped about fifteen yards from them. While normally this would seem a great distance, the size of the creature rendered it no distance at all--if it extended its neck anymore, its great snout would bowl the Winchesters right over.

At this proximity Dean could see a stunning amount of detail. Though the monster seemed to be made of nothing but liquid light and sound, it nevertheless had distinctive features. Dean couldn’t decide whether they were more reptilian or avian. It had a snout, to be sure, but that snout was lined with little feathers--well, little for the size of the creature. The littlest feathers lining its angular snout had to be at least three feet long. Three feet long.

Like Akobel’s.

“Are you…?” Dean started, but he was startled by the creature’s sudden movement.

It turned its head sideways, peering at Dean with not one, but three eyes. Or at least that was what Dean assumed they were; they looked more like wheels of sapphire fire, circling around a hole of a darkness so complete it was difficult to look at. If Dean had to imagine what the nothing before the Big Bang would have looked like, he would now say that it looked like the pupil of a seraph.

“Castiel?” Dean murmured.

Castiel gave a single nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as I said at the end of the last chapter, I have no experience with LSD, just interviews with people who have. Obviously some artistic license was used to allow the experience to fit the needs of the plot, and will continue to be used in the next chapter. Let me know how I did with that please! Feedback is always appreciated. :)
> 
> Thanks everyone for sticking with me! Next chapter should be up soon.


	10. The Caged Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters meet Quetzalcoatl.

He had never really known Castiel. Of that Dean was now certain.

Because this, this wasn’t the Castiel he knew. Not  _ his _ Cas. Couldn’t be.  _ His _ Cas was a weird, dorky little guy. A guy who psychologically evaluated hookers. Who interrogated cats and loved bees. Who had worked at a convenience store. Who, from an offhand comment he had made when Dean had thrown away half of his fries one time, had apparently eaten out of dumpsters more than once.

Dean had been around the supernatural his whole life. And he’d ganked enough monsters to know that what stood before him now was a god. And not some wood-sprite-with-delusions-of-grandeur type of god, either. The being before him was clearly not of the earth. Not of the universe, even.

Was this the friend that had fought by his side for years?

Of course Dean had always known that angels weren’t the harp-playing cloud-hoppers of Hallmark cards. Despite his poor academic reputation, he took his job as a Hunter seriously: he’d read his Ezekiel. He’d seen their power. Watched them explode each other with a snap of their vessel’s fingers. Watched Cas smite countless demons, some of them pretty powerful ones. Before Cas had rebelled, he’d even planned on wiping out a whole town with Uriel’s help. But it had never really sunk in just what that power meant. Really, Dean admitted to himself, he’d never let it sink in. Because, if he had, even he would have had trouble facing down one of these things in battle. The power that rolled off of the being before him made the hairs at the back of his neck rise. There was adrenaline, yes; fear, even though he knew this particular seraph would never harm him. Had rebelled to save him. Had destroyed his people just so that Dean wouldn’t get pulled back into war. But in the end, Dean was still a mortal. Still an animal. A mouse, and the trees were tall grass, and he was staring into the eyes of a cobra that feasted on souls rather than flesh. He was staring into the eyes of the ultimate predator, and his animal brain knew it.

But he was also staring into the eyes of his best friend.

“Castiel,” Dean said. It was not a question this time. Tentatively, he held up a hand, palm-out. Castiel understood the unspoken question, and extended his neck just slightly--the miniscule, highly-controlled movement brought his snout a mere five yards from the three humans--and gently laid his chin, which was at least the length of a basketball court, on the ground. Dean walked up to Cas slowly (it was so hard to comprehend that this was Cas!) with his hand still outstretched. He felt a strange tingling sensation the closer he got, like the feeling right before a thunderstorm, when the air is charged with electricity. His heart thrummed. This was important, he knew; this was momentous. There was still so little he understood about his Bond with this creature (Castiel!), so much he should have already known. His palm was mere inches away now, and Castiel’s snout, at least a story tall, was all he could see. The top of Dean’s head didn’t even reach Cas’s closed mouth, or the massive fangs that poked out from each side.

He laid his hand on the feathers lining Castiel’s mouth. The sensation was odd--the feathers were so enormous that Dean could feel each individual barb along their shafts under his fingers. Dean had been half-expecting the feathers to be incorporeal, for his hand to pass right through them. But they were very real. Very real, and sturdy. In fact, they felt more real than anything else in this place--anything else Dean had ever touched. The rest of his life up until this point had been a movie, watched through a screen. The dimension that this creature came from was Reality.

A strange shudder went through the creature at his touch, and Dean abruptly remembered that this was Cas. “You alright, buddy?” he asked. Cas blinked thousands of eyes slowly at Dean, which Dean took as a yes. A wave of light seemed to pass through Cas, and heat built up under the palm of Dean’s hand.

Things were quickly getting awkward. Dean tried to regain some semblance of normalcy. He withdrew his hand and chuckled. “Well, I don’t know why you were worried about your looks so bad, cuz you look fuckin’ awesome buddy. Seriously. Badass.”

A thud came from behind them and Dean whirled around to see Sam on his knees, staring at the ground. His hands were raised towards Cas, as if warding him off. Lily came up beside him and hefted him to his feet. “A celestial’s true form has that effect on some people. The more open one’s mind is to the spiritual, the more affected they are by the divine power they emit.”

“Sorry. Sorry, Cas,” Sam muttered, turning red with embarrassment.

“Don’t be,” Lily said. “You are in the company of many great spiritual leaders in your response. I take it you have more of a religious bent than your brother?”

“Yeah,” Dean answered for him, “but to be fair, that’s setting a low bar.”

“Also, you are the only non-Bonded human here,” Lily added. “Dean is more accustomed to divine power, whether he is aware of its link to him or not.”

Dean stepped back from the wall of feathers before him. “Hold on a sec, Cas, let me get a look at you.” He turned around and ran back towards the treeline, turning back. Even from this distance, it was difficult to get a full view of Cas. There was that one massive head on the ground, and a few others in the air, towering into the sky. Dean kept backing up until he was leaning against one of the trees.

Now he was starting to get the bigger picture. The indigenous Mesoamericans had been calling a spade a spade when they referred to Cas as a Serpent; when you came right down to it, he was pretty much a giant snake. You know, if snakes were on fire. Because from this distance, the soft, sturdy feathers that Dean had been petting bore a strange resemblance to flames--each feather was an individual flame licking at the air around it. Which was strange, cuz they sure hadn’t looked or felt like flames close up. There was something else odd about the picture, but Dean couldn’t quite place it.

Then it clicked. The flames made no sound. Or no crackling, at least--there was a faint rustling, like the wind gathering in leaves right before a burst of rain. But no more. Other than that, the whole meadow seemed to have fallen silent. The birds had ceased their singing. There was a predator in their midst.

Dean ran his eyes down the length of Castiel’s feathered flank and wondered at the truly massive number of eyes that Castiel could boast. They were spinning wheels of blue flame, nested here and there among the feathers. Some of them peeked out from just behind the tips of Cas’s feathers, some were clearly visible where his coat was shorter. If Dean was honest, it was pretty unnerving. At least they had symmetry going for them, though--there was definitely a pattern to the placement. Three on each side of each face, under the bridge of his snout. A line of them down each neck on either side, stripes of them flowing down his long body and branching out at each of his tails. And yes, he had more than one. He had three, in fact, each one ending with a little (if anything about Cas could be called little) tuft of slender teal feathers. Like the tail of a lion, if lions had feathers instead of fur.

The eyes would be completely creepy if they looked like actual eyes, but fortunately they looked like nothing of the sort. The dark pupils at the center of each flaming eye, though, were almost as terrifying. Dean caught himself wondering what they would lead to, and then had a very disconcerting mental image of climbing into one. He shook his head.

“I think Ezekiel was seeing an eye,” Sam’s voice came from beside him.

Dean almost jumped. He hadn’t seen Sam come up beside him; he’d been too absorbed in studying Cas. “What?”

“The ‘wheel of fire’ in the Bible, when they were describing angels. I think he was just seeing an eye. He thought it was the whole thing. But that’s the ring of fire.”

Dean nodded absently. Something was still missing. Something big.

“Where are his wings?” Dean asked, frowning.

Sam sucked his breath in. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, uh, Cas?” Dean asked, walking a little closer to the one head on the ground. From this distance he could see that the head on the ground was definitely reptilian, but the rest weren’t. In fact, they were all different shapes. So much for symmetry. “Cas?” Dean called, trying to focus. “Where are your--”

But Lily had trotted up beside him and grabbed his forearm. She shook her head quickly and hitched her chin at Cas. “His shoulders.”

Dean craned his neck to look up at the pronounced withers where his long necks rose from his body. There was something--strange up there, something moving.

And then Dean’s vision flipped. It was like looking at one of those little illusions where a picture can be seen as one of two things--once you see the second interpretation, you can’t unsee it. There was a patch of teal on his flank that seemed to be devoid of those fire wheel eyes, and the feathers were going in a different direction. He hadn’t noticed at first because--well, because even he knew that wings weren’t supposed to point in that direction. But the swath of teal wasn’t Castiel’s flank. It was a drooping wing, covering an enormous patch of space, perhaps the length of a city block. Maybe more. Dean couldn’t make it out from here.

But he could make out that something was not right.

Where were the other wings?

Why was this one at such a shitty angle?

Where were all the eyes? Didn’t wings get any eyes? If his paws and tails got eyes, didn’t his wings rate them?

“Castiel,” Lily said in a firm but gentle voice. “Extend your wings for me. All of them.”

Castiel lifted his reptilian head off the ground, blinking all of its eyes rapidly (at least Dean thought of it as blinking--it was more like the fire seemed to die down for brief moments). He tilted his head away and began to retract it, not up, but in under his chest. He shifted the fucked up wing over his massive head, tucking his nose into what was essentially an wing-armpit. Despite his many eyes, he still managed to pull off the expression of a chastised puppy.

“Castiel, we have to see the damage.”

Castiel brought his head out and opened his great jaws. Dean jumped back. Even he couldn’t fight his instincts on this one. The pointed teeth that had peeked from beneath Castiel’s upper lip when his mouth was closed had just been the tip of the iceberg. The viper’s fangs that hung from the top of his mouth were like two massive stalactites that nevertheless ended in points as sharp as any blade that Dean owned. From the depths of the cavern that was his mouth three objects emerged rapidly, and for a moment Dean thought that Cas had three other little seraphim in there. But they weren’t other serpents--they were  _ tubes _ . Golden tubes. They almost looked like trumpets, except not the kind that kids ran around on football fields with. The long, fully extended kind that Dean always imagined were played at royal proclamations.

Suddenly a hurricane-force gale swept past Dean, bowling him over. He managed to climb to his hands and knees, looking around rapidly in an attempt to understand what had just happened. Then he figured it out: Cas was breathing in through those tubes.

Lily ran in front of Cas and started waving her arms at him frantically. “No, no!” Dean just managed to hear her voice over the sound of Cas’s inhale. “Don’t speak! Don’t speak! Your voice is still too loud for us!”

Cas halted abruptly at the top of his breathe, then let it go in an a low whoosh that toppled Dean (and Lily and Sam) right over again.

“Quietly,” Lily said. “As quietly as you can. Less than a whisper.”

Cas parted his jaws just slightly (which would have still been enough for a human to walk through upright) and a sound like a church organ at full blast came through his trumpets. That or the entire brass section of an orchestra.

“Dude, she told you to keep it down!” Dean yelled, clamping his hands over his ears.

“That  _ is _ a whisper for him!” Lily yelled back. “His normal volume would burst your eardrums!”

“I don’t wanna know what his outside voice would sound like, then!”

Cas stopped speaking and peered at them. The crest of feathers that crowned his head flattened against the nape of his neck.

“Don’t take this as an invitation to speak again, maestro, but I didn’t understand a word you just said,” Dean said, looking up at Cas.

“That’s Enochian,” Lily explained.

“I’ve heard Enochian, professor. That ain’t Enochian.”

“You’ve heard a pidgin form of Enochian. Celestials have to speak an altered form of their language that fits the vocal apparatus of whatever creature they are possessing.”

“Every time I’ve heard their True Voices before,” Sam said, coming up behind Dean and Lily, “they’ve been...I don’t know...screechy.”

“You’ve only heard it filtered through the heavenly dimension. That’s all that really gets through.”

“It’s enough,” Dean griped.

“It...I mean, Cas...they sound like a church organ,” Sam said wondrously.

“What a coincidence,” Lily responded drily.

“Were they trying to imitate it? Make the congregation feel like there was an angel singing with them?”

“Well, that and to drown out all of the out-of-tune hymn singers. But yes, many cultures have found various ways to imitate the language of the divine.”

“So, uh…” Dean cut in, “I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t speak Enochian, any kind. Please tell me your fluent, prof.”

Lily sighed. “I wouldn’t say fluent...it’s been a long time since I’ve had an angel to practice with regularly. But I can take a wack at it. What were you saying, Castiel?”

Cas spoke again, and this time Dean was ready for the noise. To be fair, at a whisper Cas’s voice was tolerable--it sounded like some of the loudest instruments man had invented, but it was tolerable. Chords flowed out the trumpets, in various rhythms. Dean had to admit, after becoming accustomed to the volume, that the sound was somewhat beautiful. The melody sounded almost...sad. Wistful.

“Castiel, we assumed it was not a pretty sight. That’s why we’re here,” Lily said. After another stream of harmony, Lily responded, “Yes, they do need to be here. I need their help. Some of the medical instruments are too large for me to carry to the places I need to, or hold in position. I understand you would have liked more privacy, but we talked about this early this morning.” Another string of chords. “Ugh, if I’d known you would be such a problem patient I would never have agreed to this.”

Dean tapped Lily on the shoulder. “Let me talk to him. You translate. Cas?” he called. Cas swiveled one fiery eye to fix on him. “Look, Cas, we’ve all seen each other at our worst here, right? You’ve seen Sam with a demon blood mustache. Hell, a few months ago you barely stopped me from murdering my brother with an axe.” He ignored Lily’s raised eyebrows. “And,  _ and _ you must have seen my four-month decayed corpse when you raised me from the dead that first time, right? And we’ve seen you leaking Leviathan already, so I think we’re well past the crapping with the bathroom door open stage. Come on, Cas. Spread your wings.”

Cas gave Dean a long, steady look, then lifted a wing slowly.

It wouldn’t lift all the way, and Cas gave a low whine of effort in the attempt. “That’s enough,” Lily said softly. Dean barely noticed, though, because what the wing had been covering left Dean lost for words. Less than ten minutes ago, it had been wonder that had caused Dean’s speechlessness.

Now it was horror.

It turned out that the twisted wing was hiding a mass of keloids that spiderwebbed out into a frenzy of silver and black cracks. Some of the silver ones were oozing; the black ones seemed to swallow the edges of skin that surrounded them, warping the light that Cas seemed to constantly emit. Dean followed the dark wounds with his eyes and was shocked to see them widen into a gaping maw that exposed a series of crystalline pillars.

_ His ribs _ , Dean thought wildly,  _ Son of a bitch those are his ribs _ .

Cas’s wing was trembling, which at his size was cause for concern, especially with the proximity at which Sam, Dean, and Lily were standing. “Castiel,” Lily said gently, “you can fold your wing again.”

Dean tracked his eyes along Cas’s back and tried to take stock of all the wings. Two of them on the farthest side seemed to be okay--they were folded up primly, the one at the forefront overlapping its neighbor. But the two closest to them were impossibly mangled. The feathers seemed thinner on the closer ones, too, as if several were missing. And Dean was starting to realize that the silver structure poking out of the end of the middle one was probably the angelic equivalent of bone.

“He’s been keeping those other heads up in the clouds,” Dean said quietly to Lily.

Lily nodded. “What about your faces? We’ll need to see those, too.”

Closing the eyes in view, Cas swiftly lowered his other heads and laid them on the ground. At this point, all his eyes were “closed”. As if he couldn’t bear to see their reactions.

As Sam, Dean, and Lily walked around all four heads, it was becoming painfully clear that Cas had presented his reptilian head first for a reason. All of the other ones were in terrible shape. The first one they came up against seemed almost wolf-like in shape, but was lined with the silver and black cracks that Dean had noticed before. The next head looked like it belong to some sort of antelope-like creature, or would if both horns were not sheared off at different lengths. But the last one…

You weren’t supposed to let the patient know how bad their injuries were. You were supposed to keep calm. Dean knew that. After all, how many times had he joked with Sammy while patching up gruesome wounds, to keep him calm, make him think it wasn’t that bad?

Dean had to turn away.

There was no way to tell what creature Cas’s fourth head resembled, because half of it was just...missing. A smooth sheen of crystal bone ran all the way up the right side of the face, dotted with miniature black hole singularities that Dean knew had once been ringed by flaming irises. And the lower jaw had been blown clear off.

_ Cas. Oh, Cas. _

Dean resolutely stared at the treeline, setting his jaw as he attempted to compose himself.  _ Stay strong for Cas. Come on, keep it together, Dean. _

A voice that sounded like his father’s whispered in the back of his mind,  _ Be the soldier, Dean. We’ve got too many burdens already to be adding you to it. _

Dean caught Sammy’s eye. He looked white as a sheet. Dean couldn’t blame him. Any human would have died in seconds from the injuries that seraphim could apparently take.

Sam hurried over to Dean. “Dean, we need to talk.”

Dean nodded grimly and walked to the treeline, leaving Lily to study the damage.

“I know, it’s bad,” Dean said as the grass gave way to the first roots.

“No, I mean yes it is, but that’s not…” Sam sucked in a breath.

Dean realized in that moment that there was something more going on here, and he looked up at his brother, concerned. “What’s up?”

Sam looked to the side, pursing his lips. “Look, I--I was trying not to let it get to me, but…” He shook his head and let out his next words in a long breath. “I can’t do this, Dean. I had the wall, but he broke it, and…”

And then it clicked. “You’ve seen this before.”

Sam nodded, scuffing a boot against a tree root. “Yeah,” he said, staring at the ground. He looked back up at Dean with an apologetic expression.

Dean sighed. “Dammit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,  _ I’m _ sorry, Sam. I didn’t think about it. I’m such a friggin’ dumbass sometimes.”

Sam shook his head. “I mean, he’s not exactly like him, obviously. They’re actually different species. But it’s, you know...and with the injuries. Lucifer had some pretty gnarly ones, too. It just hit me all of a sudden. And the LSD probably didn’t help, to be fair.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. He tried to think. “How ‘bout you go back to our little base camp over by his tails? I think there was some damage to those, too. Maybe won’t be as bad. We’ll call you if we need something. Last thing we want is for you to make mental connections between Cas and Satan when you’re on acid.”

Sam gave a lopsided grin. “Yeah, probably not the best idea.”

Dean walked back over to Lily while Sam made his way back to their bags. Lily gave him a look. “What’s going on?”

“Sam had to take a break,” Dean responded, steeling himself for an awkward explanation. But Lily simply nodded and turned back to Cas, not asking for more.

“How is he still alive?” Dean muttered. Cas twisted his goat-antelope head thing over and gave Dean what could only be described as a withering look.

Lily rolled her eyes. “He’s right here you know, he can hear you.”

“Uh, sorry, Cas,” Dean muttered. He turned to Lily. “So, uh...prognosis?”

Lily crossed her arms and heaved a sigh. Dean’s heart sank at the look on her face.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking genuinely sorry. “I just don’t know.”

* * *

Lily went after Sam to go get some of her medical tools, meaning that Dean was left alone with Cas.

Dean had absolutely no idea what to say.

Throughout the entire checkup, Cas had been avoiding their gazes as much as possible. Now, though, he was staring at Dean. With a whole lot of eyes. It felt like he was on a stage.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said softly. He walked up to Cas’s damaged skull and once again laid his hand gently against his feathers, the ones that were still there. “We’re gonna fix you up, you got that?”

Cas looked down at the ground and blinked his eyes slowly. He gave a low moan, and somehow Dean felt he should interpret that as a sound of doubtful grief. He didn’t know why. But he responded to it anyway. “Cas, you look at me. Look at me.”

Cas slowly but reluctantly lifted his fiery eyes to fix them on Dean.

“Whatever the other angels say, whatever you think about yourself, that you’re...that you’re broken, or whatever the hell, I want you to stop thinking that right now. Because...because you’re goddamned magnificent, you got that? And every one of these, every one of these scars. You got every single one of them from turning your back on your people for me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.” Even as he said the words, though, he felt a pang of guilt. Because he  _ had  _ forgotten. He’d forgotten, or maybe he’d never really realized, just how much Cas had given up in that green room, before the first Apocalypse.

Cas turned his head and lowed again, then issued a series of chords from his antelope-head. Dean pursed his lips. “I should probably start learning Enochian. I want to be able to talk to you without having the professor translating for us all the time.”

Cas pulled back then and opened his mouth slightly, snaking one of his trumpets out. Dean froze. In front of him was one of the most disturbing sights he had ever seen.

Cas, the human Cas--or Jimmy Novak’s body, or whatever--was attached to the end of the real Cas’s trumpets. The trumpet-proboscis thing was suctioned against the nape of Novak’s neck, and silver-blue light pulsed through it and ran up Novak’s spine.

Dean hadn’t really thought about where Cas’s vessel had gone, when his True Form had become visible--he’d been a little preoccupied with how terrifying and cool the real Cas was. But here was the answer.

“So that’s where you’ve been hiding him this whole time,” Dean said, trying to avoid Novak’s blank gaze and looking to one of Cas’s real eyes instead. “Like a friggin’ pelican.”

Suddenly Cas’s vessel began to speak, and Dean nearly jumped. “This is the only way I can speak with you. I’d momentarily forgotten, when I first became visible to you. I was distracted.”

Cas’s voice, the one coming from his vessel, was in a complete monotone. And then something clicked, and it was as if his entire understanding of Cas shifted slightly. “This is what you’re always doing, isn’t it? When you possess someone. You’re not really inside of them--you’re puppeting them.”

“Yes.”

All of those weird stares, Cas’s stilted movements and body language, especially in the beginning--he’d been accustoming himself to steering Novak’s body. Dean really  _ hadn’t _ known Cas  _ at all _ ; he’d been talking to a puppet the  _ whole time _ . Every time he had given Cas a hearty clap on the shoulder, whenever he’d had an intense conversation with him, or an argument, or even a (manly) embrace...it hadn’t been Cas. It had just been his...finger puppet. Dean was surprised by how upset this realization made him.

He knew it was absurd, really. Even if Jimmy Novak was Cas’s puppet instead of his meatsuit, it didn’t  _ really _ make a difference. It was how Cas was forced to interact with this world. Cas had certainly reacted to all of Dean’s actions as if he were truly in that body. But it just...felt all wrong.

Dean tried to hide his discomfort with the obligatory joke. He chuckled. “Well, now I  _ really _ feel bad about dragging you to a whorehouse.”

“It’s against our vows. It would have been considered a violation of the sacred agreement between vessel and angel. I didn’t know how to extricate myself from the situation without insulting you, at the time.”

Dean hadn’t really thought about that, but in retrospect it was sort of obvious. He sent a silent apology up to whatever little slice of Heaven Jimmy had ended up in, then said, “Any reason you’re talking like a robot?”

“A robot?”

“You know, in a monotone.”

Cas’s (or Jimmy’s, or whatever) eyes snapped to life, at the same time that his real body seemed to go slacker. “I was distracted. Usually I don’t have to focus on both at the same time.”

“Well, how about you just focus on one then. Cuz it’s really creepy when you’re doing a half-assed job at both.” Cas’s vessel made no reaction to this statement, but Cas himself gave a low growl and a huff of annoyance. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I know you’re having a rough time. It’s just…” Dean paused just before saying  _ creepy _ , because he knew just how hard it had been for Cas to take the plunge and show his true self to them. He wasn’t about to give Cas that kind of a blow when he was down. He sighed. “I really need to learn Enochian. But what did you get your vessel out here to say?”

“I said, not all of the injuries are from rebelling against Heaven, that first time. Not...not even most of them.” Cas’s vessel again had no expression as he said this, but Cas’s myriad eyes slid away from Dean in embarrassment. “The...the worst of them are from the Leviathans. And the civil war. They are nothing to be proud of.”

Dean sighed and crossed his arms, then leaned back against a giant forepaw that was peeking out from beneath one of Cas’s chins. It was time to set the record straight. “Cas, why did you decide to lead a rebellion against Raphael? Open Purgatory?”

“Because I couldn’t let my people attempt to destroy your species a second time. And I couldn’t drag you back into a war that my people started, not after all you had given up already. And not...not when you were finally happy.” Cas’s answer was prompt, as if the answer was so clear to him that he hadn’t had to give it any thought.

Dean chewed over Cas’s response. It was basically the same one Cas had given Dean back when he had first discovered Cas’s treachery. At the time, Dean had been incensed. Using them as an excuse for his bid for power had poured salt in the wound of betrayal.

But now, as Dean took in Cas’s ravaged face and the useless remains of his wings, he saw Cas’s explanation as just that: an explanation. Not an excuse, or an attempt to garner sympathy for his cause. It had been an act of desperation, the kind of desperation in the face of the possible death of a loved one, a desperation that Dean knew all too well. Castiel had staked everything on that one desperate act--and he had paid dearly for it. Dean purposefully met one of Cas’s real eyes, addressing him rather than his vessel. “My point stands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you guys for all of the ridiculously kind and sweet comments on the last chapter, they had me glowing all week!! I seriously have no words for how much the support has meant to me.
> 
> So, I sort of dispensed with being careful about their tripping experience (they're seeing a giant angel-dragon thing, that's enough, right?) because I mostly wanted to wax poetic about Cas's true form. I hope I didn't drag on too long about the real Cas--I've got all this headcanon and I'm trying to smush it all into one fic! :) Thank you guys so much for reading, and the next chapter should be up soon!


	11. Cleansing Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Lily patch up Cas while Dean and Cas have a talk.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam called, coming into view from around Cas’s left forepaw. “Lily said she’s ready to start, thinks she’s gonna start working on the wings so she can get them out of the way to deal with--oh, hey, uh, Cas. Forgot all about Jimmy there.” Sam had frozen, staring at the creepy sight of Jimmy attached to Cas.

“Uh,” Dean said stupidly, suddenly struck with the horrifying image of Sam attached to the Devil by the tongue. “Yeah, Cas, if you could…”

Cas yanked Jimmy back into his mouth and turned his head away from Sam slightly. He almost looked a little embarrassed.

Sam cleared his throat. “So uh, yeah, anyways. Lily says she needs ‘two strong guys’ to help with the wings. Got a feeling we’ve just been volunteered.”

Dean nodded. “Be back in a bit, Cas,” he said, patting the great forepaw that he had been leaning on and following Sam.

“I mean technically you’re still gonna be with him,” Sam pointed out as they walked around his elbow to where Lily was standing. “You’re probably gonna even be on him.”

Dean nodded absently before seeing the smirk on Sam’s face and getting it. “Oh--seriously, what are you, twelve?” He nudged Sam playfully with his elbow.

Lily was at the base of Cas’s elbow, staring up at his withers. “So, doc,” Dean said, coming up beside her, “how we gettin’ up there?”

Lily turned to a pile of stuff beside her and plucked up a bow and a quiver of arrows. Before Dean realized what was going on, she had taken an arrow and shot it straight into Cas’s hide, right above the elbow.

“Hey!” Dean yelled, yanking the bow out of her hand and throwing her to the ground. “I knew we couldn’t trust this chick,” he said, pinning both of her arms down. “Thought you would reel us in, make us trust you, then get your revenge? You got another think comin’, bitch.”

Dean rarely ever used that word on an actual person, with the exception of Sam (who was just special that way), but damn this woman had some nerve. And she had just tried to take out his angel while he was vulnerable. That’d be the last arrow she ever shot.

“Dean. Dean!” Sam’s voice filtered through to him, until Dean realized that he was the only one reacting. Well, Cas was reacting--he had turned his reptilian head around, but he was peering at Dean.

“I forgot to tell you. Lily said she was gonna make some sort of ladder out of arrows to climb up on Cas. Apparently that used to be the ‘traditional’ way for a rider to, you know...mount their angel.”

Dean didn’t miss the second double entendre that his little brother had thrown at them, but he was still too high off of anger to notice. “Wait, and you just  _ agreed _ ?”

“Well, yeah. Not like a normal arrow’s gonna hurt him, right?”

“Akobel had a permanent set up his shoulders for me,” Lily said. “Never took them out. I don’t think he really noticed it that much, to be honest.”

Still pissed at Lily and slightly embarrassed, Dean let go and stood up. “Well, get on with it then.”

To his surprise, Lily held out the bow and arrows to him. “Would you like to do it? Usually the angel’s human is the one to do it, but I didn’t know if you could shoot with this.”

Dean could shoot a bow and arrow. Didn’t use it as often as he did a crossbow, in fact he rarely used it, but he still could. But the idea of shooting an already terribly wounded Cas repeatedly made him a little ill. He shook his head, looking away to Cas.

If Dean didn’t know any better he’d say that Cas’s snake-like face held an almost disappointed expression.

Lily carefully took aim and shot a line of arrows in succession from the bend of Cas’s elbow to his withers at nearly perfect intervals. Then she plucked up another quiver and emptied that one, stagnating so that each one was slightly up and to the right of the first line.

“After you,” Lily said, gesturing to Dean.

Dean chewed his lip. He was no fan of heights, and the fact that he would be lifting his over 200-pound frame up on a bunch of arrows did not seem like the best idea to him. But he knew that if he didn’t, Lily would to show him that it was safe. And that would not only be embarrassing, but it would also mean that Lily, and not he, was the first person to get to climb up on Cas. Which struck Dean as wrong for some reason. And maybe, just maybe, sparked a twinge of jealousy in him.

Dean gripped the second set of arrows and hefted himself onto the first. They were surprisingly sturdy; They didn’t seem to budge as he placed his full weight on them, and they definitely didn’t tear at Cas’s strange alien skin at all (much to Dean’s relief). He had no idea where Lily had gotten them, but he didn’t bother to ask; the answer would probably just be from another universe or something like that.

Upon reaching the last set of arrows, Dean curled his fists carefully around the feathers on Cas’s shoulder and belly-flopped up onto the nape of his neck. It was wide enough that Dean didn’t have to straddle Cas; he could just lay there as if on an inner tube.

Cas shifted uncomfortably, and without thinking Dean stroked him. “Shh, buddy. It’s okay. Sorry, still getting used to this.”

He then turned and looked down at Sam and Lily, a decision which he immediately regretted. The drop was dizzying, and unlike at some of the national parks Dean had been to there was no guard rail to keep visitors from suing. Swallowing his initial reaction, Dean called down, “What are you guys waiting for? Burnin’ daylight here.”

Lily immediately climbed up to join him, with practiced movements that bespoke of many years of experience. Sam took a little longer. Dean knew his brother well enough to know his hesitance wasn’t born of fear; Sam was far more comfortable with heights than he was, after all. But Sam looked up at Dean with his hand on the first arrow, silently asking Dean for permission.

Dean nodded, and Sam climbed up.

Lily studied the broken wings for a while, then began pulling a heavy length of rope from the pack she was carrying, along with several metallic rods that looked like giant thumbtacks. “Samuel, I need you to lift up the middle wing from the elbow while I lift it from the tip. We need to pin it up at the top here.”

Dean waited for his instructions, but they never came. “Um,” he said haltingly. “What about me?”

Lily moved toward him, leaning in to mutter, “I need you to go up near his heads and comfort him. Distract him. This will hurt a bit.”

Dean nodded, stood on shaky legs, and started walking carefully down Cas’s neck to the tip of his antelope head. At first he was a little concerned about the mane of emerald flames that ran down it, but it became apparent after several steps that the flames were not hot to the touch. Rather, they were like cool splashes of sea water at his feet that left him completely dry. About halfway down Dean decided to simply sit and scoot down the rest of Cas’s neck; the decline seemed too steep to get down there on two feet. Once there, he gripped the remains of Cas’s antlers and hauled himself into a cross-legged position on Cas’s forehead.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, instinctively patting down the tuft of feathers he was sitting on. “So, Lily and Sam are gonna take a look at your wings up there. Too many cooks in the kitchen if I hung around, so I’m down here to keep you company. So, uh…” Here Dean stalled, What exactly was he gonna talk about with Cas? “Anything you wanted to talk about?” Dean cringed. That wasn’t really the best way to distract a patient.

Cas seemed to agree, because his only answer was a loud huff.

“Yeah, yeah. I suck at this stuff. Well then I’ll just think of something to talk about.” Dean groped around his currently empty mind before landing on, “How much horsepower do you have? Do you think?”

Cas lifted his reptilian head to peer at Dean with what Dean could only assume was a questioning look. Dean hastened to explain, “It’s a unit of power. How we measure how powerful a car engine is. Like, the Impala has 425 horsepower. It’s equal to 745.7 watts.” Sam had always teased him for knowing this bit of trivia; it was pretty much the sole extent of his physics knowledge. “I bet over a million.”

Cas seemed to consider, then to Dean’s discomfort popped Jimmy back out of his mouth and looked up at Dean with his vessel. “A few quadrillion, I expect. Or, at least when I could fly.” He hesitated, then said almost shyly, “I used to be able to fly at the speed of light, you know.”

Dean almost responded that he had already told them that, during his reminiscences on his days as an Aztec god, then thought better of it. Although Cas didn’t usually let on too much about himself, Dean realized that his speed must have been something he was pretty proud of. Something he didn’t have anymore. Maybe a little boasting was in order.

“That’s pretty friggin’ awesome, buddy,” Dean said, smoothing down Cas’s feather crest. “Maybe when you’re all healed up you could show me.”

“You could fly with me,” Cas said, and his feathers fluffed up under Dean’s palm.

“Uh,” Dean said. While he was glad that Cas was finally talking about getting better as though it might actually happen, the idea of riding a dragon that was flying at the speed of light, possibly in space, did not sound like Dean’s idea of a good time. “Yeah. I’ll, uh, think about it.”

“It’s what everyone thinks of when they think of a Serpent and its mortal warrior,” Cas said, sounding almost excited. “The image of the two, flying together into battle. I always wanted--” Cas paused, looking warily at Dean with one of his other faces.

“Always wanted what, Cas?” Dean asked gently. This was the first time that Cas had spoken of their bond in a way that didn’t remind Dean of pulling out people’s teeth in Hell.

“Well, I always wanted to do those things. There are so many bonding traditions and I wish...I wish we’d done them. Some of them, at least.” Cas was no longer meeting Dean’s eyes; not even with his vessel.

“So, uh...Why didn’t you, Cas? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Cas looked off into the middle distance. “I suppose there are many reasons.”

* * *

**_Then_ **

Balthazar broke off his long-awaited nuzzling of Castiel and pulled away. “Damn, hold on.”

“What?” Castiel said, her myriad eyes still closed. “Don’t worry, Anna won’t find us here, she’s busy in the Centauri system. Besides, no one can begrudge us a few hours.”

Balthazar climbed off of her, coiling up on a nearby rock and looking out over the expanse of Saturn’s ring. “Really? This is the first place she’d expect to find me.”

“But not me,” Castiel replied, “and it’s me she’d be looking for.”

“Yeah, fine. But that’s not what I was gonna talk about, anyways.”

“Enough talk,” Castiel said in low tones, stretching out her admittedly gorgeous wings to their fullest span. “We talk all the time. Every time I fly back to Earth it’s another ceremony, another proclamation from Father. You wanted me to join you out here for so many years, now you’ve finally convinced me, and you want to talk?”

“No, I’m serious, Cassie. And I need to tell you this before I forget. You know the priestess?”

Castiel huffed in exasperation. “Work it is, then. Yes. And by the way, they call the male ones priests. It’s a priest, now.”

“No, no, not the current one. This was, oh, a few years ago. The one who was priestess when you were first posted there. When I first joined.”

“That was a few  _ decades _ ago.”

“Years, decades, whatever. She told me something back then, and I keep forgetting to tell you.”

“And? I assume you’re going to tell me now?” Castiel said, as if it was the last thing in Creation that she wanted him to do.

“She had a prophecy.”

“What a surprise,” Castiel said, nibbling at the smooth feathers just behind Balthazar’s jaguar ears.

“No, come on, Cassie, this is serious. It was a prophecy about you.”

“A lot of their prophecies are about me.”

“It was about you, during the Apocalypse. After you raise the Righteous Man from perdition.”

Castiel pulled back. “We don’t even know that I’ll get the job yet. The crocodilian monster went underground again after that incident. You know as well as I do that we’ve been investigating the area for decades, and have yet to find it. We still don’t even know what it is. I don’t think I will have much of a chance to prove myself at the rate things are going.”

“Well, sorry to break it to you this way, but congratulations, you’ll get the job. So I guess we’ll probably end up vanquishing the creature. But she said, Cassie, she said you’d Bond with the Righteous Man.”

Castiel studied him for a long moment, then said with what Balthazar knew was forced nonchalance, “Well, that shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Such things often happen when a celestial being saves a mortal in some way. They forge a Bond. It’s to be expected, really.”

“Yes, but, Cassie. You know how they always say, be careful around humans?”

“You mean how  _ you _ always say that.”

“Well, yes. Because I’ve seen this story before. No one can forget Lucifer and Lillith. Humans, they take you, rope you in, and then they use you! To us, a human Bondmate is our entire world, our existence, something we’ve waited for over the course of hundreds of millions of years. But to them...Cassie, to them we’re just tools!”

“First of all, I object to your assumptions regarding Lillith’s part in Lucifer’s fall,” Castiel said hesitantly. “I think we all know that she was not the only one at fault for that.”

“Oh, yeah, Dad’s a complete arsehole. He fucked over Luci, we all know that.”

“Balthazar! Do not speak of Father that way.”

“Like I was about to say, we all know it, but everyone’s too afraid to say it. But anyways, I’m just saying, humans. You can’t trust them with your emotions.”

“Balthazar, you don’t even know what will happen. So, I bond with the Righteous Man. And I help him help Heaven win the war. What’s so wrong with that?”

“No, Cassie,” Balthazar said gently. “No. The prophecy talked about that, too.”

For the first time Castiel looked concerned. “What do you mean?”

“She said...she said that he would rebel against Heaven’s plan for him.”

“The Righteous Man? Rebel?”

“They’re humans, remember. They fly by their own current. But she said that he would ask you to rebel with him, and that you will...say yes,” Balthazar dipped his heads apologetically on these last words.

Castiel stared at him for a long moment, then said in an unnaturally even tone, “Me, rebel? You couldn’t have seriously believed that, Balthazar. You of all people should know of my fealty to the Host. I’m offended that you even entertained the thought for a moment.” She coiled up, her rare bout of flirtatiousness completely evaporating.

“Yeah, well Lucifer was God’s Morning Star, and look at how Bonding with a human worked out for him!”

As soon as the words left Balthazar’s mouths, he knew he’d gone too far. Castiel hissed and fixed him with an icy glare. “You dare suggest that I might one day be comparable to--to the Fallen One? How dare you.  _ How dare you _ .”

“No, Cassie, I just--”

“This is a chance of a lifetime for me.  _ Hundreds of millions of years _ I have prepared to serve our Father in such a way. What do you want me to do if I am offered the position? Turn it down?”

“Cassie, I care about you! And I don’t want to see you throw all those eons away on a human whose life wouldn’t even last long enough for you to fly to Alpha Centauri and back! You’re...you’re worth more than that.” Balthazar steeled himself to say his next words. “Cassie, fly away with me.”

“What?”

“Resign. Fly away with me to another galaxy. Leave all this...this fighting, this posturing between Heaven and Hell. Fly with me.”

Castiel gazed at him somberly, and Balthazar understood then that she wouldn’t. That she couldn’t. She had joined the Host so young...younger than Samandriel, even. Fighting was all she had ever known.

“Goodbye, Balthazar,” Castiel said, spreading her wings and launching into the inky black.

Balthazar sighed and watched her go. So much for scoring with an ace flyer. He waited for about a half hour so it wouldn’t look like he was following her, then flew back to his post on Earth.

* * *

**_Now_ **

Dean didn’t know what to say to Cas’s story. A whole bunch of questions filled his mind, and they all eventually merged into one big question, but it was a question Dean didn’t know how to ask. So instead he groped for an easier one.

“So, uh...you and Balthazar, huh?”

Castiel glanced at him with his reptilian face, with a look that Dean interpreted as  _ That’s what you got out of this? _

“Yeah, yeah...uh. So. Was he right?”

“Right?”

“About humans. That um...about trusting us, and stuff.”

Cas averted his gaze. For a long time Dean thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then his vessel said, “There were some times that I thought so. But I...I know I was wrong.”

Dean bit the inside of his cheek. Given his track record, Balthazar might have had a point. “What times?”

“As I said, I know I was wrong.”

“Cas.”

Cas huffed out of all of his snouts, the sudden gust of wind sending the branches on the nearest trees swaying. “Alright. Well...I thought about it quite frequently in the beginning. You were very distrustful of me then. And now that I look back on it, it was with good reason. But I was...upset...I don’t think you realized at the time how monumental that decision was for me. I had left my only family, but I found once I had that you were reluctant to let me into yours.”

Dean had expected Cas to start with the obvious, but this was an issue he hadn’t even thought about. He thought back on those early months...over five years ago, now. The memories had dimmed slightly, although Dean realized they probably hadn’t for Cas. But he did remember how frustrating Cas could be. How hare-brained his decisions could be. How shockingly amoral his actions could sometimes be (hunting down an innocent child, anyone?) How skewed his priorities were...oh…

He had always been so frustrated, when Cas hadn’t done things the way he had wanted. When Cas had seemed so stubbornly angelic, when he had maintained faith in God even when it was clear that Elvis had left the building a long time ago. He had always noticed when Cas prioritized Heaven over the Winchesters, always taking for granted that first time when Cas had made the opposite choice. At the request of one puny human, at  _ Dean’s _ request, this...this being had thrown away everything he had ever known--a prestigious job, his homeland, his family, his entire species.

And Dean hadn’t even invited him to Bobby’s the following Christmas.

A host of possible excuses bubbled up in Dean’s mind then, an automatic response to the rising tide of guilt. There had been a war on. They hadn’t known Cas and they were at war with his species. Cas probably wouldn’t have liked all their strange human customs anyways...explaining the tree topper would have been especially awkward. But with an effort Dean pushed all those excuses back down.

“But as I said, I look back on that differently, now,” Cas said uneasily, and Dean realized he hadn’t spoken for a while.

Dean cleared his throat. “No. You’re right. I, uh...I should have treated you differently back then, Cas. It wasn’t fair to you. You, uh. I want you to know, Cas, that you  _ are _ family. I know I’ve been a jackass to you sometimes, but hey, that’s the way brothers are. Just ask Sam.”

“I’m not Sam, Dean. I don’t want you to think--I understand that. I’ve always understood that.”

“You’re right, you’re not my brother. You’re my angel. And I should have treated you better back then.” Dean felt the feathers under his hand puff up again as Cas tucked his heads (the ones that Dean wasn’t sitting on) under his chest. Dean silently prayed that that was a good sign and continued. “What else?” At Cas’s reluctant expression Dean said, “Look. You always know my opinion on something. How I feel about something you’ve done. But it looks like there’s a lot that’s been goin’ on in those heads of yours that you’ve been keeping under wraps. We need to get it out in the air. So I want the laundry list. Come on. I can take it. Let’s go in order. What about the civil war? I’d bet my car that there’s some shit we need to clear out there.”

“Dean, not that. We should...I have so much to apologize for, but I--this is not the time.”

“Well, then let me apologize for something, Cas. It’s something I should have told you a long time ago, I was just too chickenshit to do it. I’m sorry for kicking you out, when you first became human. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted anything more in my life.”

Cas stilled completely at this statement, so much so that Lily called out to him, asking if something was wrong.

“We’re good!” Dean called back. He turned back to Cas, threading his fingers through the feathers on either side of him. “I bet you were thinking a lot about what Balthazar said then.”

His eyes downcast, Cas nodded his reptilian head. “I--when you gave me that money, and those um, those  _ granola bars _ , and...and closed the door…”

Dean swallowed. He really didn’t want to hear this, but he owed it to Cas to listen. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I--maybe after--” But before Cas could finish his sentence, a sudden sound like a foghorn blasted in Dean’s ear, and he nearly fell off of his perch. After getting his bearings (and his hearing) back, Dean realized that it had been Cas.

“You okay, buddy?”

Cas issued a long string of dissonant chords. It took him awhile to respond to Dean; it looked like he was having trouble controlling his vessel.

“That hurt.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dean had almost forgotten why he was talking to Cas in the first place.

Lily called out to him then, motioning him back to Cas’s withers.

“Gotta go,” Dean said. “But we’re continuing this conversation, got it?”

Cas gave Dean what he could only interpret as a sullen look as Dean attempted to climb back up his neck. After the third unsuccessful attempt, Dean turned back to Cas. “Uh, would you mind just, lifting your antelope head up a bit?”

“It’s an impala,” Cas said.

“Huh?”

“My antelope-like visage. It’s an impala, specifically. Thought you should know.”

Dean looked back at Cas’s antelope head. “Well, I’ll be damned. The second time, that is,” he said. “It’s an impala. What are the odds of that?”

“The three Fates like to pull funny tricks like that sometimes.”

A thought suddenly struck Dean. “You know...I actually picked out that car. When we went back in time to watch my mom make a deal with yellow eyes, remember?”

Cas seemed to think on this. “Perhaps...part of you remembered. My True Visage, that is.”

“Uh...I’m pretty sure if I’d ever seen you like this before, I’d remember it.”

“No, I...extracted your memories of Perdition while I was resurrecting you. You wouldn’t have remembered your rescue.”

Now Dean  _ knew _ that wasn’t right. “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but I remember Hell.”

“No, not with the clarity you would have had I not at least partially erased those memories. They were too powerful to erase completely, but if you were to bear the full force of them as a living human you would be completely nonfunctional. They were too traumatic.”

That explained a lot, actually. Dean had been pretty ripped up about the stuff he had done in Hell, but he had actually been a little surprised by how easily he had jumped back into the fray. Now most of what was left was a deep guilt for stepping off the rack and a lingering fear of dogs, or anything that even remotely resembled a hellhound. “You work that little number on me that you did on Lisa?”

“Yes.”

“So uh...if you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t you do that to Sam, too?”

“The damage was too deep,” Cas said guiltily. “It was beyond me.”

Dean nodded. So, Cas had been in True Form when he had saved him. Dean had always assumed that, but he’d never really thought about it. For once, Dean wished one memory of Hell was just a little bit clearer.

“Dean?” Lily called again.

“Yeah, yeah, coming!” Dean said. “Hey, Cas, could you just--?”

Cas lifted his impala head abruptly, and Dean slid down to his withers with an “umph!” “What is it?” he asked, righting himself.

“We need your blood,” Sam said.

“Uh...I’m happy to provide, but you too much of a wuss to offer yours, Sam?”

“ _ Your _ blood, specifically,” Lily said, and then Dean understood. They needed the blood of Cas’s Bondmate.

Dean held out his arm and gestured for the knife in Lily’s hand, but Lily shook her head. “Do you have an angel blade of your own?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean said, pulling out his own. “Why?”

“It works even better if the blood is drawn with one of the talons of the Bonded seraph.”

Dean studied the blade in his hand, much the same way he had when Cas had first told him of its origin. Suddenly he felt a strange sense of possessiveness over the blade. It was  _ his _ , wasn’t it? Sam carried angel blades that Cas had given him, but really, they were meant for Dean. The blade he carried was forged from the talons of his seraph.  _ His _ seraph.

Cas had always seemed to gaze at Dean longer when he had presented him with a blade--with Sam, he had always just plopped them in his hand, handle pointed towards the recipient. But with Dean...with Dean he had always held it out, balanced across both his palms, as if to say,  _ This is of my body. Take me into battle with you. _

Dean drew the angel blade across his forearm and let the blood flow into the bowl that Lily held out to him. Then she drenched her hand in the blood and grabbed one of three ropes that dangled down Cas’s side. She propped her legs against Cas’s side and looked back at the brothers. “You coming?”

Dean noticed that each rope was tied to one of the spikes that ran down Cas’s spine at fixed intervals. “Is she... _ rappelling _ ?”

“Yep,” Sam said, already descending on another rope, his hand drenched in Dean’s blood. “Come on, let’s go.”

“But uh...where are the harnesses?”

“You kidding?  _ Serpent warriors _ don’t need harnesses. Bitch.”

“Jerk--hey!”

Dean soon found himself dangling over Cas’s side, feet propped against the soft feathers and hand soaking with his own blood.

“I’ve already flushed the wound out with holy water. Coat the cracks with the blood, and don’t be afraid to really get in there,” Lily said, practically shoving her whole hand into the ugly wound that wound past her.

Dean studied the area in front of him. He noticed that Lily had placed him at the point where the wound was deepest, where it ripped wide open to expose Cas’s ribs. Black liquid oozed out along the cracks, tar-like and bubbling. Dean was struck with a thought. “Is this--?”

“Leviathan?” Sam finished for him. “I think, maybe residue. Lily probably doesn’t know about this stuff. We should probably bring along some Borax next time.”

Of course. There would be a next time. Because these wounds sure as hell weren’t a one and done deal. These would take care. Redressing. Regular cleansing. Which meant that Dean would get to see Cas in True Form again…

_ Maybe there are  _ some _ pros to this _ , Dean thought guiltily.

As Dean ran his hands over the lip of the awful wounds, he was frustrated all over again at the fact that Cas hadn’t let on how bad of a shape he was in. Granted, Dean was starting to get a picture as to why, but he was still pissed. If Cas ever hid injuries like this again from Dean…

“So what does the blood do?” Sam asked across Dean to Lily.

“It sort of acts like a disinfectant. Just as an angel’s grace can heal a mortal, the blood of a mortal can heal an angel. It wards off any demons or monsters that may make their way inside of an angel while it is so exposed.”

_ Let’s just hope it works on Leviathan _ , Dean thought glumly, flicking the slimy substance off his hand.

By the time they were finished, the sun was beginning to set. Or perhaps the world was just becoming a little grayer. Either way, Dean was feeling exhausted. As he helped Sam and Lily pack all of their equipment back into bags, he felt something shift behind him. He turned, his jaw dropping at what he saw--or what he didn’t see. Cas was gone, leaving a meadow two miles in diameter in his wake.

“Cas?” Dean said, his heart racing. “Guys, where the hell did Cas go?”

“I’m here,” a familiar voice said from close by.

Dean blinked to see Jimmy Novak (it was difficult not to make that distinction now) standing a few feet away from him, staring at Dean intently.

“Where'd you go? I mean  _ you  _ you?”

“LSD must’ve worn off,” Sam said.

“That wore off a while ago, actually,” Lily said. “Now that you’ve seen him once, with the help of the LSD, your brain has been retrained to accept the sight of his True Form without suffering a hemorrhage.”

“I just sent my True Form back into the Heavenly Dimension,” Cas said. “When we leave this area, I don’t want others to be able to see me.”

Dean barely heard his explanation. So...he would be able to see Cas...whenever he wanted to? That was...seriously awesome.

As they walked back to the Impala, Sam engaged Cas in a deep conversation about the mechanics of vessel possession. Lily and Dean soon fell behind, as they were carrying the heaviest bags. Dean looked up at the interlocking branches of the trees. He figured they were probably walking under one of Cas’s necks right about now.

“Dean, we need to talk about something,” Lily said.

“Ah, so that’s why you gave me the heavy stuff.”

Lily ignored him, continuing, “His injuries are...terrible. If he were still one of the Host, he would have been euthanized by one of the Rit Zien on the battlefield long ago.”

“Jeez lady, he can probably still hear you.”

“His attention is on Sam, would you listen?”

“Yeah. Fine. Well, tell me something I don’t know. He looks like he belongs in the first scene of  _ Saving Private Ryan _ .”

“Yes. Well, that’s what war will do to you,” Lily said. Dean didn’t have time to be surprised at the fact that Lily was apparently pop culture fluent, because she said, “He’s starving, too.”

“Starving?”

“I take it he hasn’t smote any human souls for a long time.”

“Well, uh, not...not since the war in Heaven. But he never did before, either, even when he was at full power.”

“You mean before he truly left the Host?”

“Yeah, well and for some time afterward.”

“Well, the Host provides its soldiers with a steady stream of Heavenly power. But separated from the Host, a seraph is left to fend for itself. And a physically active mature seraph requires at the very least one mortal soul a year to maintain a healthy level of power, preferably two.”

Dean stopped. “You’re saying--he needs to…”

“Smite a human, yes.”

“Well, what about demon souls? Or monster souls, he’s smote monsters before.”

“Those can tide him over, yes. But if he’s going to heal at all he’s going to need a more nutritious diet than that.”

Dean thought. “What about, um...soul touching? I mean, one time when he was really hurt he touched Bobby’s soul. That gave him power.”

Lily raised her eyebrows. “He’s done that? That’s a very delicate procedure.” She shook her head. “The two solutions you have proposed so far are equivalent to giving a recovering patient candy and the scraps from someone’s dinner table for food. He’ll need a well-rounded meal. Surely there are some humans whose souls are not worth saving?”

Dean began racking his brain, then instantly felt disgusted with himself. If only the Dean of ten years ago could see him now...he would have seen him as the enemy. Considering helping a supernatural monster to prey on humans? That simply wasn’t an option.

Lily cocked an eyebrow at his silence. “You’re seriously considering letting your seraph starve to death rather than end the existence of one human? It’s not like there aren’t a lot of good candidates. I would say choose someone whose soul is already destined for Hell anyways...they’d be better off, really, ceasing to exist.”

“Seriously?” Dean whispered loudly at her. “I can’t--not even that.  _ My  _ soul was damned once, too, remember? And I got a second chance. A lot of the people who make deals don’t deserve Hell. And they don’t deserve non-existence, either.”

“People who make deals aren’t the only ones who end up in Hell, you know,” Lily said. “It’s pretty hard to make it on God’s shitlist--His Son pushed pretty hard for an open-door policy--but there are some who get themselves blacklisted.”

Dean said nothing.

“You know, the kind of men you killed when you saved Castiel’s next vessel in line.”

Castiel’s next vessel? Who was she--oh. Claire. Dean had always thought of Claire as Cas’s vessel’s daughter, but she was technically his vessel as well.

“I did that under the influence of--a curse.” Dean caught himself just before saying “the Mark”. “How did you know about that?”

“I was keeping track of Castiel’s vessel bloodline. It was my best chance of finding him.”

Dean felt a rush of anger. “So you knew Claire’s situation and you didn’t do anything?”

Lily frowned. “I knew she was in the foster system, which by virtue is broken. But so are many other children. If you’re talking about that unsavory fellow, Rando or whatever his name was, so? That was her own choice, there was no way I could stop her little Oliver Twist routine. To my knowledge the deal those men made with her...handler was the first one of its nature. And of course you took care of that. I only found out by following the trail of bodies.”

“So...you think Cas should eat sex traffickers?”

“That’s what Kali eats nowadays. She breaks up sex trafficking circuits by smiting those who run them. That’s the modern seraph; some of them are better at keeping up with the times than others.”

“Kali’s a seraph?”

“Are you completely oblivious to the celestial world?  _ All _ divine creatures belong to one of the species of the genus known among apocalyptic scholars as  _ caelestibus _ . Some choose to become pagan gods; some join the Host. Your angel is of the species  _ caelestibus serpentum _ , or seraph. But there are a lot of seraphim in the Hindu pantheon as well.” Lily paused to climb over a fallen tree trunk, then continued, “But anyways. That was just one option. I mostly say that because war criminals are a delicacy and rather hard to come by.”

Dean sighed. “I’ll...think on it. Anything else? Is there anything I can do, you know, as his...human?”

Lily bit her lip.

“What?” Dean said.

She sighed. “There is, but I can’t tell you.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“Because if you knew, it wouldn’t work.” With that, she quickened her pace to catch up with Sam and Cas, adding her own expertise to the vessel talk. Dean was left trying to parse out her meaning for the rest of the way back to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I am so late. In my defense, over the last month I signed on for 60 lbs of canine companionship. My new dog and I have been with each other for three weeks now and already we have forged a strong Bond. Interspecies friendships are awesome!! I think she could give Cas a run for his money as far as speed too. The squirrels in our neighborhood better watch out.
> 
> Anyways this fic is taking on a totally different life than I had predicted when I had started it. Pretty sure I had anticipated being done by now but it's sort of turning into a whole novel and a serious case fic so thanks all for staying with me!! More to come!


	12. Offerings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas offers Dean a gift; Dean and Sam consider their own offering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: The themes discussed in the following chapter do not necessarily reflect my own understanding of Hell and God's capacity for forgiveness (duh, this is SPN). I know that most of you probably won't care but as a religious person I would feel dirty if I didn't put that out there, lol.

“Dean?!” Sam called for the twentieth time. Where the hell was he? He’d checked all the usual places: kitchen, map room, Dean’s room, weight room, firing range, garage, the parlor that they’d converted into a TV room. “Dinner’s ready, where are you?”

_ Ah, what the hell _ , Sam thought, and started off down the hall to the one obvious place he hadn’t checked yet.  _ If Dean’s hanging out in the library I’ll eat my hat. Eat my hat, now that’s a weird idiom. Wonder what the history behind that phrase is _ . He’d taken a semantics class as a gen ed course once in college, and he knew they’d had a section on idiomatic language, but he’d mostly forgotten it at this point. He did remember, though, being surprised at just how many idioms littered the average language. Thank God he’d never had to learn anything past functional Spanish.

As he neared the library, he heard a strange sound. It sounded almost...melodic, and grew louder as he approached the library.

The sight he came upon in the library stopped him in his tracks. Dean was sitting at a piano that Sam had almost forgotten the bunker had, plunking out chords. Propped on the piano ledge was an old leather bound book. Sam didn’t move a muscle, not wanting to break the moment. After about two minutes or so, though, the last chord faded away and Dean turned around. “You gonna speak, or what?”

“I was gonna say that dinner’s ready, but what are you doing?” The spell broken, Sam crossed the room in quick strides and picked up the book. It was open to a page with musical notation. Above each chord was a syllable. At first glance Sam mistook it for solfege, but upon closer inspection it was completely unrecognizable. Beside each syllable was a character of some sort, and then Sam understood. It was Enochian.

Sam closed the book slowly and looked at the cover.  _ Enochian for a Modern Age: Both High and Pidgin Forms. _

Beneath the title, in smaller lettering:  _ by Lily Sunder. _

Dean grinned. “She’s an old scholar on supernatural stuff, so I looked through the library to see if we had anything from her. Wanted to know who we were working with. Came across this and couldn’t resist.”

A warm feeling settled in Sam’s heart. “Didn’t know you could read music.”

“Dude, I taught myself guitar back in high school. Had a friend in band who would let me borrow his at one of the schools.”

“You were friends with a band nerd? You?”

“Hey some of those kids had their own bands, got gigs at local bars. And the tuba guys could drink me under the table.”

“Heh,” Sam said, leafing through the book. He closed it slowly and gave it back to Dean. Then he saw Dean’s phone. It was open to a recording app that was currently paused.

“You recording something?”

“Stuff I wanna say to Cas. I figure he spends so much time talking in my language I should try to meet him halfway. Or, well, one hundredth of the way, anyways.” Dean sighed, picked up his phone and stood up. “Well, don’t want the food to get cold. What’re we having?”

“Spaghetti with marinara. A Winchester special.”

“With meatballs?”

“Who do you think I am, Gordon Ramsay?”

When they arrived in the kitchen, Cas and Lily were already seated at the table. Both of them had plates heaped with pasta in front of them. “Cas, you eating too?”

“I demanded it. He doesn’t have the power to keep his vessel in stasis, so he has to keep it running the natural way,” Lily said, shoving a forkful into her mouth.

Dean frowned. “Wait--how long has that been going on?”

Cas looked down at his plate. “Well--The last time I was at full power was the, uh, the Leviathans.”

“But there’s been other times you haven’t been at full power before that, and you’ve never said anything. Why didn’t you--” Dean started, then closed his mouth abruptly. His nostrils flared in frustration.

“So,” Sam said, pursing his lips. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

Lily smirked as they all tucked in. “What, no grace before dinner?”

“No,” Sam, Dean, and Cas said in unison.

After about five minutes, Dean shoved his phone at Cas. Cas looked up at him, nonplussed.

“Press the play button. There’s some stuff I need to tell you on there. Should have told you a long time ago.”

When Cas didn’t do anything, Dean clarified, “It’s the little sideways triangle--”

“I know what it looks like, my car has one on its radio,” Cas said. He looked back down at the phone and pressed the button.

A series of piano chords issued from the phone. They were tinny, slow, and clumsy, as if the pianist was just learning how to read music. At first Cas looked confused, but Sam could tell when he finally recognized what the chords were. He held the phone closer to his ear as he looked at Dean, his eyes widening and his mouth opening slightly. When it was finished, he hurried to play it again. The second time he was smiling.

Lily had paused with a fork halfway to her mouth, looking at Dean with raised eyebrows. She eventually lowered the fork and cocked a half-smile at him, giving a quiet huff of laughter. And then Sam remembered that he was the only one who couldn’t understand Enochian at all. “Hey, uh, translation somebody? Lily?”

“Maybe you should learn Enochian,” Lily said, wiping her mouth with a paper towel.

“Oh, come on...Dean?”

Dean shrugged. “Up to Cas.”

Sam turned to Cas with a pleading expression, but he had disappeared. He was walking quickly down the hallway, almost at a jog.

“Now where’s he going?” Dean frowned, gazing after him.

Lily shrugged and went back to her food. “That was very sweet of you, Dean.”

About five minutes later Cas came rushing back into the room with something long in his hands. “Dean,” he said, “stand up.”

“Uh.” Looking confused, Dean rose out of his chair and came towards Cas. Cas dropped to one knee in front of him. For one wild moment Sam thought he was going to propose to him.

Instead, he bowed his head and held out the object, balanced across his hands. Sam realized it was a sword, wrapped in leather.

“ _ Zuraahi lavaol naptaoli arpga’a, g’blanseol nomig ds capimao g’g gezirol. Cordzizoli zirg. Congamphlgholi zirg. _ ”

“Uh,” Dean said, “Sorry Cas, I’m just a beginner at Enochian. I need a little help here.”

Cas seemed unoffended though. He smiled and shook his head, then said, “I humbly ask that you take this, my talon, that I may protect you even when I am not by your side. You are my human; you are my soul.”

Dean blinked, and for a moment Sam was worried that Dean would do that stupid thing he did where he got embarrassed and shied away from anything “too girly”, as Dean would say. While Sam felt incredibly privileged to be witness to something obviously so important, he also wished he were anywhere but here.  _ Why Cas, why did you have to do this in front of people? _ Sam knew Dean would react, if not well, at least a little less disastrously if there were no onlookers.

But to Sam’s utter astonishment, Dean did nothing of the sort. He didn’t stutter out an embarrassed excuse for needing to leave; he didn’t laugh at Cas or belittle what was obviously a ceremonial gesture and an important Enochian tradition. Instead he placed a hand on Cas’s shoulder, and Cas looked up.

“I uh, don’t know if there’s any particular way I’m supposed to answer that, or if I’m supposed to answer in Enochian, or anything, but uh...I’m honored Cas. I’m honored, and I accept.” Gently he took the sword from Cas’s hands. He unsheathed it and placed the leather wrapping on the table. The sword glinted under the kitchen’s stark LED lighting, immaculately clean. Enochian runes ran down its side, and Dean gently and carefully ran a hand down the them. Then he stepped away from the table and drew the sword through the air. It made a whistling sound as it sliced through the empty space. He switched the sword from hand to hand, making some complicated moves before almost losing the handle. He caught it just before it clattered to the ground.

“Heh,” he chuckled. “I need to brush up on my fencing techniques before I take this into battle.”

Lily stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You can practice with me. I still take Akobel’s with me wherever I go.”

Sam couldn’t help it. He started clapping. Lily laughed and joined in as well. “Took you two long enough to sort this out,” he said, smiling broadly. He then leaned over and picked up the sheath. “What is this, exactly? It’s not really leather.”

“Oh, that’s skin from an old shedding. It’s traditionally used to sheathe our talons...it doesn’t degrade as quickly as leather does. Takes several million years.”

Sam dropped it quickly. “Wait, this is like, dead snake skin? From you?”

“Don’t be such a wuss, Sam,” Dean said, picking the sheath back up and fitting the angel sword back into it.

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

* * *

Sam and Dean washed up the dishes as Lily drew a sample of Grace from Cas in order to gauge if the first treatment had made any appreciable difference. As he cleaned out the pasta bowl, Sam gave Dean a sidelong glance and cleared his throat.

“Spit it out, Sammy,” Dean said gruffly, but the small smile that hadn’t left his lips since he had accepted the angel sword remained firmly in place.

“So uh, you thought about how we’re gonna feed Cas? I mean Cas Cas, not his vessel.”

Now the smile was gone. “Guess Lily told you, too, huh.”

“Yeah.”

Dean finished drying the plate in his hands and pulled the pasta bowl from Sam’s. He continued drying. For a while it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything, and Sam geared himself up for Needling Dean Stage 2. But then Dean spoke.

“You’re probably pissed that I’m even considering it.”

That was not the reply that Sam had expected. “What makes you think that?”

Dean shook his head. “So, today in the meadow. That’s what was with you. In Hell.”

Sam flared his nostrils. Dammit, this was not what he had been planning on talking about. “Well, uh, Michael and Lucifer aren’t seraphim. They’re devas--related, different species. A hell of a lot more powerful and a hell of a lot bigger. Sort of like, I don’t know, the difference between a wolf and a fox or something. So it’s not the same.”

“Close enough that you had to bench yourself while we were lookin’ at him.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah. I mean, I’ll get used to it. It’s Cas. You can read him in any font, really. Same old Cas.”

“You mean the same seraph that tore down your wall?”

“You’re not trying to get me angry at your angel, are you?”

“No, I’m just sayin’. Must ruffle your feathers, the idea of feeding one of those things a human. No pun intended.”

“Look, if you want me to play devil’s advocate here, that should already tell you what you’re gonna choose. No pun intended.”

Dean squared his jaw. He was still aimlessly running his dish towel over a now completely dry bowl.

Sam continued, “Or maybe you want me to reassure you. In that case, remember who you’re talking to. The guy who dated a demon. Drank demon blood. My first girlfriend was a monster, and that was before my voice had even dropped. And then I went and tried to protect her when I was an adult, after she’d killed someone to feed her kid. I’m that guy. Remember?”

“Now it sounds like you’re trying to get me angry at you. And by the way, your voice still hasn’t dropped.”

“Oh, shut up.”

They worked in silence for a while. As Sam picked up the last utensil, he said, “So. You got any ideas? Any good candidates?”

Dean set a water glass on the drying cloth. He shook his head, not looking at Sam.

Sam handed the knife he had been washing to Dean. “Well I do.” He pulled out his cell and opened his contacts, clicking on one of his frequent ones and handing it over to Dean.

Dean looked up at him. “Jody?”

* * *

They’d retreated to Dean’s room for some privacy. Having now seen Cas, Sam realized that they probably weren’t fully out of his earshot (he was probably filling up the whole bunker right now) but when he was using his vessel he seemed to be a little distracted from the rest of the things he was observing, so they could only hope that he wasn’t really paying attention to them.

Dean held Sam’s phone out to him.

Sam shook his head. “You call.”

“Why? It’s your phone.”

“It’s your angel.”

Dean gave him a look that was almost pleading. It was a look Sam rarely saw on him--that was usually his schtick. He realized that Dean had made a lot of strides today, especially in regards to unblocking his emotional constipation. Maybe he deserved to take the passenger seat on this one. Sam plucked the phone from Dean’s hand and made the call.

It picked up on the very last ring. “Don’t tell me you’ve got another teenage refugee from the supernatural that needs a home. I’m a single mom and two girls are enough. We all cycle together now, did you know that? And let me tell you, you do not want to be in this house during that week.”

Sam grinned at Jody’s exasperated voice. “Don’t worry, officer, no kids for you right now. Can’t make any promises for the future, though. I actually was calling about the South Dakota State Penitentiary. We’re looking for a list of prisoners who committed certain types of crimes.”

“Do I wanna know why?”

“Not really.”

“Let me guess--you’re hunting something that only eats rapists, or something?”

Sam shared a glance with Dean. “Sort of.”

Jody sighed. “Well, I’ll check, but I should let you know we haven’t had a lot of prisoner deaths lately. Which is a rarity honestly.”

“Oh no, we want a list of...living ones.” Even Sam felt dirty as he said this. Were they really doing this?

His tone must have been off, because Jody said slowly, “Okay. You guys are gonna have to give me a little more detail on this. Cuz you know I could lose my job for this type of thing, and with Alex and Claire...are you wanting extra protection on these guys?”

“Uh…” Sam grimaced. That was exactly what he didn’t want. He hadn’t really thought this through too well. It was a  _ state penitentiary _ after all. Not some little local holding cell. And how much pull would Jody have anyway?

“What do you wanna...meet these guys, interview them?” Jody paused, then said, “Oh, jeez--you aren’t wanting to use them as bait, are you?”

Sam put a hand to his forehead. She definitely wouldn’t want to hear their real goal.

“Samuel Winchester,” Jody said in her most commanding motherly tone. “What are you up to? Be straight with me.”

“It’s William,” Sam said.

“What?”

“Samuel William Winchester, if you were trying to pull the full name chastisement on me.”

“Well?”

Sam sighed.  _ You gotta be honest with your allies. Getting caught in a lie is the best way to lose her. _ Sam breathed in and then said, “You know Cas?”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “You mean Castiel?”

“Yeah.”

“I know him, yes.” There was an odd quality to her tone that Sam wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

“Well, we’re fighting against a pretty big monster right now. I mean sink the entire Deep South big. And it turns out Cas has dealt with this thing before, like, a thousand years ago. So he’s our best shot at killing this thing. But he’s, uh...disabled...from all the stuff he’s been through. So we’re trying to patch him up.” Dean looked up at him and started shaking his head hurriedly. Sam waved him off.

“And?” Jody said slowly.

“Well, uh, you might not want to hear this next part. As a cop and all that. Plausible deniability. Uh...is this your regular cell?”

“I gave you the number to a second one. I’ve put away enough dealers to know how this works.”

“Right, well. Turns out Cas’s species, well...to heal, he’s gonna need to, uh, smite a human. And, you know, we were looking for...acceptable targets?” Sam gritted his teeth on that last sentence and held his breath. Dean buried his face in his hands.

Jody was silent for a long time, the only thing punctuating the soft static from the phone being the pounding of Sam’s heart in his ears. Finally Jody said, “And you think that a state penitentiary is just...what, a pharmacy? You wanna just pick one off the shelves?”

Sam didn’t really know what to say. He felt bile rise in his throat. “No, Jody, it’s not like--”

“I used to be religious, you know. Went to church every Sunday. Worshipped God. Praised his angels. You know when that stopped?”

“Um, uh. When you found out about the apocalypse?”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But the angels--I never really met them back then. I knew they were responsible for all those things, for my husband--” Here she stopped, seeming to gather herself. “But I still told myself, it’s Lucifer, it’s just Satan, and the angels are having to get dirty to try to stop him, and God has a plan. God has a plan.

“No, I stopped going to church when Claire entered my life.”

Sam swallowed, but he could only listen mutely as Jody continued.

“Do you have any idea what your  _ angel _ did to that girl?” She spat out the word as if it were poison. “He ruined her life. She’s sharp, she had such a good life ahead of her, she had a loving family, she was an A student, she was gonna get scholarships and get a great job and a white picket fence like the one she grew up with and everything. And then he ripped her father away from her. No explanation. Nothing. For a year there she was just one of the millions of kids with a dead-beat dad. Cas didn’t just take her father from her, he took away the image of her father, the upstanding, good man she knew him to be. And then he came back. And what did he do then? He  _ possessed _ her. A preteen girl. And she watched her father get taken away from her all over again. And then her mom, killed in front of her by an angel. She grew up in foster homes, group homes. Nobody gave a shit about her. She is a  _ completely different girl _ than the one she would have grown up to be, the one she deserved to be, all because of what she’s had to go through. All because of angels. All because of Castiel. So no, I don’t go to church anymore. And you can come to me for help on your missions again, but don’t you  _ ever _ come to me for Castiel. And you will keep him the  _ fuck _ away from my daughter.”

Sam didn’t respond for a while. Then he said, “Alright, Jody. I understand. Um, you take care, and uh…” He paused, wondering if he should add the last part. “Say hi to Alex and Claire for me.”

“Say hi to your brother for me. And--Claire, what. Wait, hold on.” Jody’s voice became muffled. She was clearly talking to somebody else, presumably Claire. Then she was back. “Hold up, Claire wants to talk to you. I’m handing you over, against my better judgment FYI.”

There was a clatter and then Claire was talking. “I just heard Jody’s tirade. You talking about your douchebag angel?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam said uncertainly.

“What’s up, is he hurt or something? I mean, other than how fucked up he already is. Damn, he looked way different a few months ago than when I first met him.”

“What do you mean?” Was she talking about what he thought she was talking about?

“I mean his True Form. I know you guys can’t see it, but I figured he’d told you. Wait--he didn’t tell you?”

Sam had almost forgotten that Claire could see Cas’s True Visage. And that he must have appeared to her at some point, to ask permission to possess her. “Uh, not until a few days ago, actually.”

“Oh shit. So  _ that’s _ what this is about.”

Sam sighed. “Yep. We’re, uh, trying to heal him.”

“Oh yeah, no wonder Jody was pissed. She hates his guts.”

“And I guess you do, too.”

Claire was breathing heavily on the other end of the line and Sam assumed she was walking up some stairs. There was the slamming of a door, then a raspy noise as if she was changing positions. Flopping down on a bed maybe. She sucked in through her teeth. “Not really. I mean, it’s still hard to look at my dad hanging out of his--well, I still don’t want anything to do with him. But I...I know who the bad guys are, now. And I guess he did what he had to do. I just wish he’d taken someone else’s dad, I guess.” She sighed. “But, like, did you call to tell me about this? Why’d you call Jody?”

“We just need some supplies to heal him. Thought maybe Jody could help.”

“LOL. Well good luck with that, cuz he looks like shit. What would Jody have been able to help you with, anyways?”

“Uh...I don’t think this is really something I should be--”

“Oh, come on. He freaking possessed me, and I don’t get to know what this is about? Seriously?”

Sam chuckled and said, “Well, you’d probably start hating him all over again.”

“Dude, if I can sort of get over him wearing my dad and getting him killed, I can take it. You were calling about getting your hands on a prisoner. You gotta make an offering or something?”

Sam was shocked at how quickly she’d hit the nail on the head. He tried to recover. “For, like, a spell?”

“Oh, I assumed it was for Castiel. But it’s for a spell?”

“Wait how did you…?”

There was silence for a while. “So it is for Castiel.”

Sam swallowed and finished his aborted question. “How did you know?” he said quietly.

There was a pause before Claire said slowly, “You’ve never seen him smite anything, have you?”

“I mean, demons and stuff, yeah.”

“No, I mean, really smite. I mean, you didn’t see how it really happens. What’s going on under the hood.”

Sam hadn’t, and he hadn’t really thought about it either. His mind flashed to the long, golden trumpets that had snaked out from Lucifer’s mouth and caught his brain in a vice-like grip. Remembering them now, they could have almost been...proboscises.

“It’s pretty fucking freaky,” Claire continued. “But I’ve never seen him eat a human before that way.”

“And this, uh, this doesn’t seem to be freaking you out, that we’re talking about this.”

“Dude, I used to roll with a guy named Randy, you think anything freaks me out at this point? But it seems to be freaking you out. You okay?”

“Um,” Sam swallowed. “I will be. Anyways, uh, I’m gonna get off now. It was nice talking to you, Claire. Hope everything’s going good over there.”

“Hey, no, wait! I wanted to know if that’s what you want because, if you want bad guys, I can get you bad guys. The guys in prison, they’re off the streets. Some of them are even innocent. But how about you help out the world a little bit at the same time?”

“Uh, Claire. We’re not trying to get back at anyone you have a vendetta against. When I say we’re looking for bad guys, I mean, really bad guys. Guys who are going to Hell without parole. The kind of guy that, when they die in the movies, you cheer.”

“How about an abusive foster parent?”

Sam’s mouth dropped open.

In the silence that followed, Claire said, “This isn’t a vendetta, I swear. And I wasn’t there for long, I acted up too much. But, one of the other kids--and they’re flying under the radar, somehow, they keep getting kids, no one ever fucking listens to us! I just--”

“Okay, uh, okay. Let me talk to Dean about this. I’ll, uh, I’ll get back to you if we decide anything, okay?”

“Bullshit, you’re just gonna ignore me. Like every other adult does.”

Her words twisted something deep in Sam’s gut. “No, Claire. I promise you this is not like that. I have to talk to Dean about this. How about if I promise to call you tomorrow with our decision? Then you can give us more information. And, uh...don’t let Jody know.”

“Hey, I’m a pro at lying to adults. Only thing I got out of the foster care system knowing how to do, TBH.”

“Yeah, well you better not be lying to  _ us _ .”

“Like I said, I don’t want anything to do with Castiel. If it were just a vendetta I’d take care of it myself. But I wanna make sure it’s done right. And I don’t want them to come back as demons one day, they’re bad enough as it is.”

“Fair enough.”

“Talk to you tomorrow, then.” With that, Claire hung up.

“So?” Dean asked, rubbing his forearm nervously.

Sam handed him back the phone. “You think Cas would like the taste of abusive parent?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Okay. So as I hinted at in my disclaimer, I am very uncomfortable with the idea of saying who deserves Hell and who doesn't (my faith instructs that that is not my domain). I feel like I have to put that out there. But enough about my faith, no one cares about that here lol. I considered finding another way for Castiel to regain some power, but I realized that it was important to Dean's character development that he not be allowed to sidestep his best friend's true nature. So it had to be a human. Someone born human and largely unconnected with the supernatural world. While no one is really an acceptable target (and that's sort of the point), I decided that for the purposes of the plot, an abusive parent would fit in well with Claire's story and if anyone deserves it I figure they could be on a short list.
> 
> Disclaimer 2: The grand majority of foster parents are great people who do far more than most of us would ever do in the service of our community. I don't want to fall into the trap of "evil adoptive parents" here, but hey, if JK Rowling can do it...
> 
> Disclaimer 3: If you are look for a nutritional diet for your pet seraph, I do not espouse using the prison system as a source. I agree with Jody here. It would be terribly amoral. The Winchesters were just a little desperate.
> 
> Note: The Enochian that Cas speaks was taken piece by piece from a translator off the internet. Then I created my own morphology and syntax for the language to combine it. If I use enough of it I might write a little primer at the end of this fic:) For the linguistically minded, the apostrophes are read as glottal stops (the sound in the middle of "kitten" for example. Hint: if you sound it out, it's not actually a "t").
> 
> Note2: The next chapter might take me a little longer because I will have to research an experience I have never had again. Thanks in advance for your patience!
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me! And I hope all of you stay safe during this pandemic--at least fanfic reading and writing is something most of us can do while sheltering in place!


	13. The Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchesters devise a plan to sate Quetzalcoatl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: References and memories of physical and sexual abuse.
> 
> Disclaimer: As I mentioned in the notes for the last chapter, the abusive foster parents represented in this chapter are by no means representative of most foster parents. The grand majority of foster parents are doing a great service for our communities.
> 
> Also, the term "retarded" is used in the narration. I don't use that word personally but I thought it fit the tone of the character.

Sam. Dean, and Cas were silent as they pulled into the nearly empty school parking lot in Sioux Falls. There were a few teenagers still loitering around the premises, probably still waiting for their parents to pick them up after their extracurricular activities. A girl with a high ponytail and gym clothes carried what Dean recognized as a trombone case; two tall boys in basketball shorts carried their backpacks to an SUV with a dented fender. Dean scanned the area for that telltale shock of blonde hair that had definitely been inherited from Claire’s mom.

They had managed to drag Cas along without letting on exactly what they were up to; Dean had simply told Cas that Claire had requested their help, and Cas had hopped in the car. Of course, Cas would have probably agreed to help no matter what Dean was asking for, so long as it was Dean doing the asking. But Claire was Cas’s  _ vessel _ ; as soon as her name had been mentioned, he was on board.

“You see her?” Dean asked, craning his neck.

“Not yet,” Sam said.

Dean sighed. “Well, I’m getting out to stretch. You think I could get into the school to use the bathroom?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “This is why I told you to take a pit stop at the gas station. Road trips are not a ‘who’s-got-the-toughest-bladder’ competition.”

“You only say that cuz you always lose,” Dean said, finishing his stretch and looking around. He spotted Claire leaning against the railing of the steps leading up to the entrance. He pointed her out to Sam and Cas, then waved at her. Claire walked over to them.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Dean responded.

“So...you ready to roll?”

“Well, first we need to know a little bit about what we’re walking into. We looked into this couple, they’re still in the system. But beyond that we don’t have a lot on them, and you were, uh, keeping sort of quiet over the phone.”

Claire nodded and scuffed one of her sneakers into the broken pavement. “Yeah. I’ll tell you on the way.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up. You’re not coming.”

“Uh, yes I am.”

“It’s a nine hour drive. Just what the hell am I supposed to tell Jody?”

“Nothing. Jody thinks I’m going on a trip with the volleyball team.”

“You’re on the volleyball team?”

“Hell, no. I would never be caught dead in booty shorts. I just needed a ready excuse for whenever I need to get out without her knowing.”

“Jesus, Claire. Jody’s a good person. Is this how you treated all the other foster parents you had? Cuz I’m starting to wonder if there’s another reason for you not getting along with the couple you’re setting us on.”

Claire gave Dean a glare, and even Dean realized that what he had said was in poor taste. Sam cleared his throat. “Claire, what we’re doing is really illegal. You may not think it now, but you have the possibility of a great future ahead of you. And you don’t wanna get mixed up in this stuff.”

“I’m already mixed up in this stuff. Your overgrown pigeon here made sure of that.”

Sam opened his mouth to say something, but Cas beat him to it. “You’re right, Claire; you have already been immersed in the supernatural world, because of me. And because of that I cannot condone involving you in it anymore.”

“Yeah, you are the last person who gets a say in this.” She opened the door to the backseat. “Move your feathery ass,” she said, shoving Cas over. Cas seemed too confused to fight back. “Besides, I’m the only person who knows the couple, knows the house, and knows the kind of monsters they are.”

Sam breathed out through his nose and gave Dean a look. Dean sighed. “Jody’s gonna kill us,” he said, opening the driver side door and folding himself back into the Impala. Before turning the ignition, he pulled out his phone and sent Claire a quick text.

_ Don’t tell Cas who we’re going after. I told him you needed help hunting down a monster. He wouldn’t have agreed otherwise _

Claire replied almost immediately.

_ You told him the truth _

Dean breathed in through his nose and started the car. “Off we go. I’m stopping at a gas station before we leave town though, so everyone make sure they take a piss before we really get on the road.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

* * *

Cas was staring at her.

Not with her dad’s eyes. With his own. Where the Winchesters couldn’t see.

He’d been doing it since they left the gas station about an hour ago, and it was getting annoying.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she looked up from her phone, fixing her eyes over her dad’s left shoulder and through the window. “You need something?”

Cas blinked all of his eyes (and it wasn’t in unison--blech). “No.”

“Good. Then stop staring at me. It’s creepy as fuck. Look out the window or something, Jesus.”

Sam shifted in the passenger seat and shared a glance with Dean, but other than that they said nothing.

Eventually, Cas said, “Um, Sam and Dean have neglected to inform me on the specimen that we are hunting. Would you mind briefing me?”

Claire looked at him again, this time meeting her father’s eyes. She swallowed and tried to speak, then realized that she wouldn’t be able to. Not looking into those eyes. Not looking into the eyes that had greeted her in the morning every day before school, while the drapes were drawn back and a strong tenor voice filled the room with “Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory”. Not looking into the eyes that had crinkled with a proud smile after she had read her first Bible passage in front of the whole church, in what her dad called her “radio host voice”. Not looking into the eyes that had abruptly emptied of all of their emotion, all of their love, as the creature that wore her dad’s face said, “I am not your father.”

Not those eyes.

So Claire looked down at her phone again, pretending to read texts from friends she didn’t have. “Not sure what kind of monster they are, but they like to lock kids who don’t behave in the garage after they beat them. And sometimes the husband likes to touch the foster daughters. But they’re really good at hiding their true nature out in public. Buy us treats, never swear at us, would have us wear long sleeves to hide punishment.”

This time it was Dean who fidgeted in the driver’s seat, and Claire could see his jaw square in the rearview mirror.

“Do you know why they masqueraded as foster parents? Did they consume the children they collected?”

Claire let out a bitter bark of laughter. “No, I think they just wanted the money.”

Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Claire, when we get there, how many kids you think gonna be there?”

“Oh, probably not more than two. They don’t give out too many at a time. We’d keep acting up and the couple would make it look like we were just problem children. So eventually the kid would get taken away and put in another home.”

“Claire, when we get there, you’re gonna have to stay out of sight. They’re gonna recognize you. Just give us an overview of the neighborhood and a layout of the house and Cas and I will leave you with Sam while we get the job done.”

This seemed to be news to Sam, but he took it in stride. Cas seemed surprised, and Claire assumed that he must be used to  _ him _ being the one left behind to babysit, but he said nothing. Claire had no intention of being left behind, but she knew she had to ride this out until they couldn’t just turn around and bring her home.

Huh.

She’d never thought of Jody’s as home before.

“Yeah, I hear you,” she said, shaking herself from her thoughts. “I can just hang by the local high school until you pick me up.”

Dean nodded curtly, blinking rapidly. Claire figured that he was surprised she had agreed so readily. Maybe she should have put up more of a fight.

She looked back down at her phone and tried to not to look at her father’s face as the car rolled on.

* * *

“So the plan is, Sam is staying here with Claire, and as soon as Cas and I finish up at the house, I’m gonna come tearing back here in the rental. Sam’ll be ready to roll out of here as soon as Cas and I are back in the Impala.” He pulled the rental into the vacant school parking lot and parked the car next to the Impala.

Claire had had an uneasy feeling the whole time that she had been directing them through back streets and past the house. She wasn’t scared of what was about to happen--she knew that the Winchesters would never let anything happen to her--but bad memories coated every surface of this town, turning the whole place murky and grey even under the blue summer skies. The house had been the worst, but even the school brought up moments she would rather forget. She looked at the tree that she’d sit under while waiting to be picked up, wishing desperately that she could stay at school just a little while longer, if only to avoid going back to that house. The track field that she had run around endlessly at practice; not because she liked running, but because extracurriculars would give her a reason to stay after school. Of course, that had all come to a stop when the fees had come due and she hadn’t managed to save up enough money from her part time jobs, because there was no way the couple she was with would ever spend a cent of the allowance they were given on extracurricular activities.

Her eyes wandered over to the woods just beyond the railroad track, where she had disappeared into the day after she’d been kicked off the team. She’d managed to stay on the streets for a couple of days, because the couple never called anyone when she didn’t come home that night. It was only when the school made the call that the search had started. But it was enough to get her rehomed.

“Alright, Sam, Claire, out you get,” Dean said.

Sam got out of the car and began walking towards the Impala. Claire didn’t move.

Dean twisted around to look at her. “You good, Claire?”

Claire nodded.

“Um...you gonna get out of the car?”

“No.”

Once Dean realized that she was being insubordinate, his jaw squared and he shifted his weight. “Come on. Get out of the car, Claire. We had a deal. You can’t be involved anymore than you already are.”

“I’m not going.”

“Then I’m gonna turn this car right back around and we’re driving back to Sioux Falls.”

“I’ll tell Jody that you took me along and that’s why I was gone.”

“Do I look like I care?”

“I know them better than you. I know what they’re doing, how they think.”

“I’ve ganked a lot of monsters without knowing them personally.”

“ _ You _ were hunting at this age.”

“Yeah, and we’d been exposed to it since before we could read. You don’t have experience with this kind of stuff.”

“Oh, I don’t have experience? You don’t even know the kind of experiences I’ve had.”

“I thought we agreed this was not a revenge trip. We’re taking care of them so they can’t get to any more kids. That’s it.”

“Oh, so you get to have your revenge but I can’t?”

“Sam and I don’t do revenge. We just do pest control.”

“Bullshit. I’ve learned a hell of a lot more about you since we first met. You’re in this business cuz your mom got killed by something, right? And you were chasing that thing for years!”

“That was different.”

Claire turned to Cas. “And what about you? You siding with him?”

“Of course. My first priority is to keep you safe.”

“Oh, well that’s great. Wish that had been your priority when you stole my family from me and forgot about me when I was thrown into the foster system.”

Cas turned away abruptly, as if he had been slapped. Claire felt a vicious stab of satisfaction.

Claire pulled out her phone and quickly texted Dean.

_ Let me come with or I’ll tell Castiel why we’re really here. _

Dean’s phone pinged. He pulled it out and looked at the text, then shot Claire a glare. “Fine. What the hell ever. Three’s gonna be a crowd, especially with an amateur.”

“One more thing.”

Dean scowled. “What.”

Claire took a deep breath, still sort of shocked that she was making this decision. “It’s not gonna be three. It’s gonna be just two.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Claire,” he said, giving her a meaningful look that shot right over Castiel’s head, “Cas has to come.”

“I know,” Claire said. “And I know this...monster can only be killed by being smited. Smote? Whatever. But they have to know why they’re dying. That they messed with the wrong kid. So I wanna be the last thing they see.”

Dean frowned, apparently trying to figure out what that had to do with limiting their party to two. She waited for him to get it.

But Castiel got it first.

“Absolutely not, Claire.”

“Why not? You didn’t have a problem with it before.”

“Because it was necessary then.”

“Wait, are we talking about what I think we’re talking about?” Dean asked. “Cuz if so, I vote hell no.”

“And I vote your vote doesn’t count,” Claire said.

“But mine does, at least in this matter,” Castiel said. “And I am not possessing you under any circumstances. I made a promise to your father.”

“Yeah, you made a lot of promises to my dad,” Claire shot back. “Like when you promised you would protect my mom and me. And that didn’t work out too well for my mom, did it?”

Both Dean and Castiel were silent.

“You weren’t there, Castiel. You weren’t there when I was at this house. For future reference, that’s a prime example of what my dad meant when he said to protect his family. You weren’t there when I was locked in a garage for hours without food or water. You weren’t there when the woman beat the shit out of me after she drank too much. You weren’t there when the guy…” She bit her lip, then continued, “You weren’t there then, but you’re here now. But you’re not my fucking savior. And I’m not gonna be powerless again, not in front of them. So when you smite them, I want it to be with my hand. I want that. And you’re gonna give me a front row seat. Cuz you fucking owe me.”

Dean opened his mouth, presumably to protest, but Castiel held up his hand. “Alright, Claire.”

“Cas!” Dean hissed.

“No, she’s right. Who am I to lecture her on revenge? A promise to a vessel is a sacred one. Upon breaking my promise to Jimmy, I essentially rendered the consent that was contingent on that promise obsolete. I can’t make it up to Jimmy, but I at least owe it to Claire to grant her this.”

“Cas, she’s like fourteen,” Dean hissed.

“Seventeen,” Claire corrected, annoyed.

“Chimalma was fourteen when I first possessed her, and she was far more worthy--capable, I mean,” Cas said, shooting Claire a furtive glance, “of being an angel’s vessel than many older vessels I have had. I don’t know what it is with humans and their obsession with choosing arbitrary ages to mark progress, but by angelic standards Claire is an adult.”

“Yeah, well, fuck angelic standards,” Dean said, turning back to the wheel with a resigned expression. “Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do to stop you two, so I’ll let Sam know the change of plans. Won’t affect him much, someone still needs to look after the body--I mean, Cas’s current vessel.” Dean caught himself, shooting a furtive look at Claire. He got out of the rental and walked over to the Impala, where Sam was messing with his phone.

Claire shifted in her chair and turned slightly towards Castiel. She really hadn’t expected to get her way on this, and now that she had, she realized she hadn’t really thought about what would come after. The idea had started forming in her mind the night that Sam called, when she realized that Castiel would be smiting those jackholes and that he would definitely have to be the one to do it. She had gotten a slimy feeling in her chest just thinking about it--she’d often daydreamed of the day they would finally get what was coming to them, but in her fantasies it had always been  _ her _ that was getting the job done. Her, walking back into that house, not as a helpless, heartbroken kid, but as a hardened warrior. An angel of death.

And now not only was it not going to be her, but it was going to be the creature that stole everything she cared about away from her.

She had sat on her bed all evening, dismissing Jody’s occasional knocks with an, “I’m fine, just leave me alone!” She had pondered over that slime in her chest. At first she had felt guilty. She really  _ had  _ passed along their names because they were evil people who needed to be taken care of before they hurt anymore foster kids, because God knows the CPS wasn’t doing shit. She wasn’t doing this for revenge.

But she found she wanted revenge nevertheless, and once the plant was seeded, it was impossible to uproot.

At first, her little solution of letting Cas use her to do the smiting had disgusted her. Let that  _ thing _ that had ripped her father away from her--back in? Over the many years since she had been possessed by Castiel, she had locked the memory away in her mind and tried to avoid it completely. But if she was truthful with herself, it wasn’t because it had been horrifying.

It had been exhilarating.

She supposed she understood why her dad had hated it so much--the loss of control was astounding, especially to someone who had responsibilities, like someone with a wife and kid. Everything was just...just so much. She remembered that. Being swallowed up by that alien mind, being lost in it--it was like nothing she had ever experienced before or since. A few of the drugs she’d taken in the last few years had come close (dangerously so--she had found herself drawn to them again and again) but nothing had ever quite matched it. She supposed it was sort of like a trip--you can have a good one or a bad one, and if your mind’s not in the right space it’s gonna be a terrible one. But the fact that she hadn’t hated it made her feel--dirty. Guilty. As if she were somehow dishonoring her father’s memory.

But she was thankful for it now.

“So, uh, you gonna...hop in, or what?” Claire said, trying to slow her breathing.

Cas eyed her and she realized that he might be pretty nervous about this too. “You know, if at any time you don’t want--”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Let’s get on with it and give these guys what’s coming to them.”

“Alright,” Cas said. “Let’s um, go to the Impala. So Sam doesn’t have to transfer…”

“My dad’s dead body? Yeah, good idea,” Claire said, opening the door and walking toward the Impala.

Sam was standing outside of the Impala now, talking in hushed tones to Dean. When he saw Claire he began in a cautious tone, “Claire…” Claire just waved him off and got in the back seat of the Impala. A moment later the other back door slammed and Cas was once again beside her.

“Okay, so I’ll, uh…” Cas started, then gave up and just lay against the back of the seat. He closed her dad’s eyes and opened his mouth, and let go of her dad in a burst of blue-white light.

Claire jolted as she felt something like burning ice latch to the nape of her neck and plunge down her throat. A warmth settled in her stomach and ran through her bones, all the way to her toes. Her eyes stang with tears as emotions she couldn’t name rushed through her, and memories of the vast emptiness of time filled her. She fell back and waited to lose control completely.

But she never quite did.

She had been a little worried that she would hardly be able to experience the moment, that she would be taken over too completely by Castiel. But this time, it was different. This time, although her body was no longer responding to her mind, she could see clear as day what was going on around her. She could hear Dean and Sam’s voices, calling for her and Cas. She could even smell the fresh-cut grass of the open field in the middle of the track that served as the school’s football field.

She could experience all that, and more. All of her senses were heightened. A bee landed on a flower hundreds of yards away, and she could hear it’s little feet hitting the flower petals. Water droplets hung in the air in front of her, brushing the hairs on her skin. Dean and Sam smelled worried; not fight or flight worried, just concerned. It actually sort of stank.

And then, there were sensations she didn’t understand at all. Ones her brain couldn’t even make sense of, so she just tried not to focus on them. Colors she didn’t know existed. Movements in the near future--time stretched out like a rubber band behind and before her, and she could make out some of the events just on the horizon. Pressure, radiation, the thin membrane between this world and the heavenly one, and the souls trapped like flies in molasses in between.

What was going on?

**Cas had given Claire more access this time. She wanted to see their faces as they died; that was the whole point of this. He would give her more if she wanted. He would give her anything she asked.**

Claire was startled. It wasn’t really a voice in her head. More like, just knowledge. Information transferred directly from his mind to hers.

That was alright. She didn’t really want full control; much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t experienced with this stuff the way the Winchesters were. And she definitely wouldn’t know how to access Cas’s powers.

“Claire, Claire, you alright?” Sam asked, placing a hand on her forehead for some reason.

“Cas, you in there?” Dean asked.

Claire’s mouth moved without it telling her to. “I’ve successfully possessed her. She’s fine, as far as I can tell. I have kept her aware of everything that is going around her. As well as given her access to my senses, to an extent.”

Dean grunted, his eyes darting everywhere but to her dad’s body. “So, you need to get your sea legs? We good to go?”

“Give me a few minutes,” Cas said, and Claire was suddenly lifted out of the car and walking around outside. Her legs wobbled dangerously. “Her gait is different,” Cas said.

_ Yeah, no shit, _ Claire thought.

“Alright,” Cas said. “Good to go.”

Dean nodded, not quite looking Claire in the eye. He opened the passenger side door of the rental for her.  **Cas was surprised by the gesture.** Claire snorted, and the aborted movement turned to a weird choking sound in her lungs.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“Yes,” Cas said. “Claire just found something amusing. I wasn’t prepared for her laughter.”

_ Gee, thanks, Castiel. _

Dean grunted and slammed the door behind them. He got into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition.

Claire felt and heard every movement of the engine. The loose gravel crunched underneath the tires of the car, and Claire could feel every bump. The smell of stale, conditioned air filled her nostrils and lingered on her tongue. She wished she could open the window. It would be an onslaught of sensations, but at least it would smell better.

Cas rolled down the window. Dean glanced at him, then turned back to the road.

**The air here was already cooling with the tilting of the Earth, as opposed to the semi-tropical city of Houston that they had been in less than a week ago.** Claire felt the brisk wind  **that came off of the large lakes to the northeast.** It whipped her hair back, pulling out delicate strands here and there, tying it in knots. Ultraviolet radiation soaked into her skin, softly, silently, slowly killing the top layer. They stopped at a light briefly, before the machine hummed in quick transition from red to a color she couldn’t place the name of.

So wrapped up was she in these new sensations that she was surprised when the car parked on the edge of the street opposite the house.

That house.

A sickly feeling built up in her gut, and her fingertips hummed. She felt a sudden force surge through her, then pull back abruptly.  **Castiel would have to be careful to not give Claire too much leeway; she hadn’t been nest-broken over the course of millions of years, she was bound to experience some power incontinence. Especially with such strong emotional stimuli.**

Dean got out of the car and once again opened the door for Claire--or Cas, Claire wasn’t sure which one. “Once they see you, it’s gotta be quick. Got it?” Dean said.

_ Damn, I was  _ “--hoping to draw it out.” The words stumbled over Claire’s tongue just as Cas gave her back control of her vocal cords. “Sorry,” she said. “Cas gave me the wheel mid-drive.”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, well, just don’t do that when we’re actually in there. How about, Claire, you get to do all the speaking, and Cas’ll do the rest. If it goes south, Cas gets control. And follow my lead at first--no exposing why we’re really there until we’re in and the door’s closed.”

**That was probably the best solution.** Claire tried to nod in agreement but nothing really happened. Cas and Dean walked up to the front door. Dean rang the doorbell. “Nice house,” he commented, looking around the manicured front lawn.

For a while there was nothing. Nothing but the faint buzzing of a fly around a pile of dog shit out on the sidewalk, and the humming of electrical wires nearby.

Dean rang the doorbell again. The sound was obnoxious. Two chimes clanging over the faint static of the speaker they were coming from. There was the sound of movement inside the house; someone was slowly getting up from the couch. The springs creaked in protest.

“They’re not coming to the door,” Dean said. “We might have to let ourselves in around back.”

Claire realized that maybe Dean couldn’t hear the movement. “Nah, he’s coming. He’s halfway down the front hall.”

Dean looked at her in surprise, then nodded.

The lock unlatched and the door opened. And there he was.

Ronald.

The fucker.

Claire felt the power rush through her again, but it receded more quickly this time. She smelled shock from Dean, and it occurred to her that Ronald might not have been exactly what he was expecting. Dean may have been fighting demons his whole life, but Claire had lived with demons for most of hers. They just hadn’t made it to Hell yet. She knew they could look like anything.

And this one looked like a professional. He was still in his white button-down shirt and dress slacks, for Christ’s sake. He must have just gotten out of the office, making the transition from terrorizing his subordinates to terrorizing the kids that had been entrusted to him.

“Can I help you?” he asked, looking at Dean.

And then he registered Claire. The muscles in his face twitched in shock and anger, but the expression was covered quickly. Claire doubted Dean had seen it.

“Claire,” he said, plastering a smile on his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s good to see you again. How you been doing? Are you still in track?”

Claire swallowed thickly. “I’ve moved onto other things. How are you and Sally?”

“We’re doing well. Sally just got a new job at the local Bank of America. Well, uh, come on in. Gotta warn you, it’s a mess right now.”

It wasn’t a mess, of course. It was never a mess in their house. Except in the garage, which doubled as a storage room for junk they didn’t want, as was the case in most midwestern homes.

“Take a seat,” Ronald said, gesturing to the couch. “Can I get you anything? Water, lemonade? I’ve got some IPA in the fridge.”

“Water’s fine,” Dean said.

Ronald glanced at Claire, and she shook her head.

After Ronald had walked into the kitchen, Dean said, “I’m gonna ask to use the restroom and see if any kids are at home right now. Think you can hold down the fort?”

“No need,” Claire said. “Only one kid lives in the house right now. And they’re in the garage. He’s going to go get them and make him freshen up before he lets you see him.”

Dean nodded tightly. “You smell all that?”

“Yeah.”

**That being said, Castiel hadn’t smelled anything other than human about Ronald. Which wouldn’t have been too strange; some monsters could mask their scent quite well. But there was one thing that Castiel did sense in Ronald, something that confused and concerned him, something unmistakeable…**

**A human soul.**

**Sour and browning at the edges, but a human soul nevertheless. Perhaps Claire had been mistaken--**

“I hope Sally’s in,” Claire said abruptly, trying to sidetrack Castiel.

As if on cue, Ronald suddenly called from the kitchen, “Honey, we have visitors!”

“Who is it!” Sally called back from upstairs.

“I think they’re from CYF Solutions. Claire’s here, too. You remember Claire?”

Sally was silent for a while. Then there were footsteps on the oak stairs.

Sally was thin, blonde, and pretty for her age. Claire had always thought she went a little overboard with the makeup though. Especially when her blood red lipstick would get all over the vodka bottle.

“Hey, sweetie,” she gushed to Claire as she entered the room. “How are you?” She opened her arms for a hug. On instinct, Claire shied away. Or she would have, if she’d had control of her body. But she didn’t. The socially retarded angel did. The socially retarded angel that had apparently just recently learned a lot of human social cues. So her body lifted from the sofa and folded into an awkward embrace with Sally.

Claire tried to follow suit. “Hey, Sally, how are you?”

Sally tensed, seemingly taken aback by Claire’s positive response. “Pretty good, how about you? You still in track?”

Was that the only goddamn thing they remembered about her that they could talk about in public? “Uh, no, not anymore. The track team at my new high school isn’t so great.”

“Oh, which high school is that now? Is it in the Bloomington Public School District?”

“Uh, no. I actually got adopted. It’s in, uh--” There was no way in hell she was gonna tell them where she really lived, so she searched for another big city. From another state, preferably. “Cleveland, Ohio.” She tried not to make it sound like a question. “You wouldn’t know it.”

“Oh, well I’m so happy for you Claire!” Sally squealed. “But it’s too bad you’re so far away, we’ve missed you, you know.”

“Uh, yeah. Too bad,” Claire said stiffly.

Dean sat tensely at her side. The room fell into an awkward silence for a while, until Ronald reappeared with a kid of maybe eight or nine. Claire could smell the fear on him--a subtle, rank smell, as if the fear was prolonged. Settled among the fear was the sharp tang of anger. She knew that particular mix well. Was that what Castiel smelled on her all the time? No wonder he felt so damn guilty.

Claire was broken out of her reverie when Dean shifted beside her. Claire followed his eyes back to the kid.

He had a split lip.

Of course, that proved nothing. Nothing the social workers could pin them on anyways. He was a kid; maybe he’d just fallen while climbing a tree. Or gotten hit in the face with a stray baseball (oh, wait--kids didn’t do that anymore, Claire supposed). But Claire knew better.

It looked like Dean did, too. His jaw squared again  **in that way that Cas recognized** and he glanced at Claire. Then he composed himself and stood, holding out his hand to shake with Sally. “Hi, I’m Charles Watts from the Center for Youth and Family Solutions. We’ve come here as a part of a program designed to help reconcile children with foster families that they parted with under less than ideal circumstances. Our goal is to help understand the underlying forces that caused the situation, in order to improve future experiences for both children and foster families.”

If Sally had looked guarded before, her fake grin was now practically plastered to her face. She looked like she belonged in a slasher film. Which she sort of did, but whatever. “Well absolutely, we’d be happy to help. You know, we always understood. It’s so difficult for children in that situation. I couldn’t imagine having grown up in foster care. That’s why we volunteered, of course. To give those children the chance they deserve.”

Bitch.

Dean seemed to turn into a completely different person then; he spent the next several minutes speaking gently, politely about Claire’s time with Ronald and Sally. Sally, in turn, fed Dean a bunch of lies. Dean occasionally roped Claire into the conversation, to keep up the pretense that he was holding some sort of mediation. Claire answered with clipped, polite responses. Tried to make herself sound as if she had matured over the last few years; that she realized that it had been her who was in the wrong. Sally’s eyebrows twitched in surprise every time Claire answered without fuss. Without Cas, Claire would never have caught those microexpressions. But now, she could feel the air shift slightly with each small movement of that woman’s face. It was mesmerizing.

Dean even addressed the kid, Jalen, every once in a while, with questions about his experience with Ronald and Sally. Jalen’s answers were always brief. Timid. He would glance up at Ronald each time, as if searching for the correct answer. And after each response, too, this time searching for approval. Claire recognized those expressions. They’d been on her face, once. In this house. The first house she’d been placed in after her mom had left and her grandma died.

Finally, Dean cleared his throat. “Could you excuse Claire and me for a moment?”

“Of course,” Sally said graciously.

Dean pulled Claire into the kitchen. They stood by the back door that led into the garage. The door that had barred Claire from the yellow warmth of the house during dozens of midwestern winter nights. Claire looked resolutely at the sink as Dean addressed her.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Pretty sure you can hear me right now so I’m keeping it down. They aren’t gonna do shit while I’m in there with them.”

“So? Not like we’re waiting for a go ahead.”

Dean gave her a pointed look. “Cas,” he said suddenly. “What’s the verdict? What kind’ve monster we facing here?”

There was a pause, and then Claire felt her mouth begin to move. “Dean, I’m not sure we’re right about this couple being supernatural. I hate to say it, but they may just be...well, human. I can sense their souls--”

Dean waved him off. “Claire?”

Claire began to fight for her vocal cords back, but she found that she faced no resistance. “Fine. You’re right.” Claire sighed. “Go take a dump or something, then.”

Dean nodded and walked back into the living room. Cas followed suit. “Would you point me in the direction of the restroom?” he asked Ronald.

“Yeah, sure. It’s right past the back door, on your left.” Ronald jerked his thumb back into the kitchen.

Dean walked off into the kitchen, leaving Claire alone with Ronald, Sally, and their latest victim.

**Not alone.**

As soon as the bathroom door closed, Sally turned towards Claire. “You slutty little snitch.”

Claire considered keeping her composure, but figured she needed to goad them to violence in front of Cas. “If you hate sluts so much, why’d you marry one? Tell me, how’s he getting on with Jalen? Or is he actually too young for him? Cuz that would be a fucking shocker.”

Sally’s hand struck Claire’s face with the speed of a striking viper. “Listen up, cunt. Do you realize what you nearly did to us when you ran away? We were tied up with CPS for months. Ronald almost lost his job. We fed you and gave you a home, which is obviously more than you deserved, and that’s how you repay us? You ungrateful little shit. No wonder your dad skipped town the first chance he got.”

Claire was suddenly standing then. At first she thought that her rage had overcome Cas’s control, but then she realized that it wasn’t her who had caused the movement.

It was Castiel.

“James Novak did not ‘skip out’ on Claire,” Claire found herself saying. Cas corrected himself then. “On me. Or my mother. He was a good man.”

Ronald and Sally looked shocked at first. Then Sally sneered. “Oh, I’m sure. I don’t blame him for ditching you. I would have if I’d been saddled with you as a daughter.”

Castiel curled Claire’s hands into fists. “How dare you.  _ How dare you _ . I know you beat that child. I can smell the fear on him.” He turned to Ronald then. “And I know what  _ you’ve _ done to the child as well.” He paused, then continued, “As you did once to me. How could you? You were entrusted with the sacred responsibility of providing for these children, and you betrayed that trust. I can assure you that you will languish in Perdition for all eternity as punishment for your crimes.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. I forgot you came from a family of religious nutbags. That’s why your dad left you guys, right? He was crazy, thought he was hearing angels. Guess he cared more about his God than he cared about you. Hope that worked out for him.”

Claire felt the fury of a hurricane rush through her, nearly blacking her out in the process. The fury wasn’t hers; it was too strong, too pure, too righteous. One might almost say it was almost divine.

Claire’s fist landed squarely in Sally’s face.

Ronald, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly burst into action. He pinned Claire up against the wall, smashing her face into the pale stucco. She felt the individual ridges of the pattern pressing into her cheek. Ronald slipped a hand around her waist, pushing the tips of two fingers into the waistband of her jeans. His voice was a rough whisper in her ear. “You’re gonna regret ever running away, girl.”

“Ronald,” Sally hissed, her voice thick through the blood pouring from her broken nose. “There is a social worker  _ in the house! _ ”

“So? She threw the first punch. I’m not gonna mark her up where he can see it.”

“He could come out at any moment!”

“I’ll drop her when he flushes.”

“Ronald!”

Claire, for her part, was frozen. She didn’t know why. She was strong. A fighter. Right? That’s what she’d told everyone else. What she’d told herself, through all the foster homes. In the group home. With Randy. Wasn’t she?

Then why couldn’t she move?

Because she was drowning. Drowning in memories. Ronald’s hand on the back of her neck.  _ Claire, let me help you zip up that dress. Claire, let me help you into the shower. Claire, you look like you need a massage. Claire. Claire. _

**Claire.**

Suddenly Claire was facing Ronald. One of her hands was on Ronald’s head, as if she were a priest at church giving a blessing.

Ronald looked confused.

His expression didn’t change as an all-encompassing light flowered from Claire’s hand, and he fell to the floor.

A strange feeling came over Claire then. It was almost--calming. Satisfying. A life-giving energy seeped into her bones, gathering at the nape of her neck and spinning upward. Upward.

And then it was gone.

Soon she was stepping over Ronald’s lifeless body, walking slowly and purposefully towards Sally. Sally’s face was now a rictus of shock and terror. She backed up against the fireplace, her back hitting the mantle, her hairspray-soaked mane flattening up against the mirror that hung above it.

“What the fu--who are you?” Sally stammered.

“I am Claire Novak’s guardian angel.

“Your sin against her is a sin against me. Now behold my holy wrath.”

Claire’s hand fell onto Sally’s stiff hair. Claire had been waiting for this moment. Claire had fantasized about this moment for years.

And now she couldn’t bring herself to look.

So she looked over Sally’s shoulder instead, into the mirror. Into dozens and dozens of eyes.

Castiel’s serpentine figure rose behind her, his eyes sparking with strands of lightning. For a moment Claire was back in her old backyard in Pontiac, watching as a dragon that her mother couldn’t see asked her father for the ultimate sacrifice. Then the mouth behind her began yawning wide...wide, opening up on a dark, endless cavern. The light burst from Claire’s hand once more, bringing with it that overpowering warmth. And that’s when Claire realized that neither the warmth nor the light were coming from Castiel.

They were coming from Sally.

Her soul. This was it. This was Sally’s soul. And Claire was just a conduit.

Sally followed her husband to the floor, her eye sockets hollowed and smoking.

Claire breathed a shaky breath. “Dean? I think Cas is done eating.”

Dean walked carefully into the room. He took one look at the bodies and said, “Cool. We gotta get out of here.”

Suddenly Claire’s voice was taken over by Castiel. “Dean, I’m so sorry, I’m so, I don’t know what came over me, they were human, Dean! They were just humans. I just...lost con--”

Dean waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, Cas, I knew they were human. I’ll explain later. Right now we gotta get out of here.” He knelt down in front of Jalen. “Hey,” he said, his voice turning soft, “I know that was pretty scary, but I promise you we’re the good guys. We just wanted to get you out of here okay?”

Jalen gave a shaky nod and looked over at Claire nervously. “Who  _ is _ she?”

Dean looked at Cas as he answered. “She’s, uh. She’s a superhero. She fights bad guys and saves people. You seen the new Wonder Woman movie?”

The kid nodded mutely.

“Well, she’s like Wonder Woman. And she’s my best friend. Saved me a whole lot of times.” He clapped Jalen on the shoulder and stood up. “Now, we’re gonna get out of here, okay?

Jalen nodded hurriedly and took the hand that Dean offered. As he followed Dean out the door, he turned back to Cas. “Thanks, Wonder Woman.”

**Cas didn’t understand that reference,** so Claire chuckled and answered for him. “Anytime, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So this chapter is like twice the length of most of my other ones, I'm not sure how it got so out of control. Anyways, I tried doing my research as much as I could for this, looking up foster abuse testimonies and speaking briefly with a friend who is a social worker. Since I am thankfully so far removed from such experiences there still may be many inaccuracies regarding the foster system, etc. and I would welcome any comments or corrections on that.
> 
> I wanted Claire to get repossessed by Cas mostly because it's easy to forget that she's not just Cas's vessel's daughter, she's also one of Cas's True Vessels, and I think that's a very unique relationship in Enochian culture that should be explored more. So I sort of stretched the plot to throw that in there. Hope her motivation for wanting that was believable enough.
> 
> Thanks guys for sticking with me! And Happy Easter and Passover to any practitioners of Christianity or Judaism out there! And happy random week in April for everyone else (unless you've got a holiday that's coming up that I'm unaware of) :)


	14. Aftertaste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will returns to the bunker.

Cas was silent all the way back to the school parking lot. Claire was strangely mute, having receded as far as she could into the back of her mind. Was she angry at him? Afraid? He had seen that terror in her eyes, once; back in a manicured backyard in Pontiac, Illinois. Back then it hadn’t bothered him. Now, though…

The car turned into the parking lot, and Cas felt the little Grace he had cool with anxiety. He wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for Dean to stop the car, turn around, and look at him with that expression. Betrayal. Disappointment. Righteous anger, from the Righteous Man. The man he had sworn to protect. The human soul that he had been waiting for all those eons without ever knowing it. And now he had--had  _ fucked up _ , again. Like he always did. And Dean would cast him away, again. Like he always did.

He thought back on just a couple of days ago, when Dean had said to Cas in his own native tongue, so clumsily and sincerely, those beautiful words. Words Cas had only dreamed of hearing for years.

Dean had even looked up that word, the word that had no translation in English. English had an annoying habit of conflating all of their words for positive feelings or affection into one bland word,  _ love _ . That one term encompassed at least a dozen different words in Enochian--adoration for God, loyalty to a brother in arms, respect for all children of God, affection for one’s progenitor, devotion to one’s offspring, lust, enjoyment of an activity or object. And then there was that word, that word that Dean had used.

The chord that was only used for affection between a mortal and its angel.

And then, Cas had presented Dean with an angelic sword, forged from one of his talons. He had fantasized about that moment for years, eventually resigning himself to the fact that he would never work up the nerve, and that even if he did, Dean would not appreciate it.

But Dean  _ had _ appreciated it. More than appreciated it--he had looked at Cas with an expression that Cas had never seen directed at him before. An expression that had etched itself into Cas’s memory forever.

It had been so perfect. All of his scars, all of his sins had melted away under that one look. Cas even forgot for a moment that he couldn’t fly, and would likely never fly again. None of it mattered, because he was Dean’s angel.

And it had only taken him two days. Two days to destroy it all.

Dean parked the car. Sam quickly threw the Impala in gear.

Without a word Dean got out and opened up the door for Claire and Cas. Cas watched Dean guardedly as he hurried out of the car and into the Impala, trying to read the expression on his flat, human face. His brows were pinched together. That was anger, right? But his mouth was a flat line, and the eyebrows didn’t point down, they pointed up. His forehead was crinkled in lines. Cas thought back through the expressions that had run across his face naturally when he was fully human. He could have sworn that he remembered that expression meaning something different.

After closing the door on Claire and Cas, Dean walked around to the driver’s side and knocked on the window. Sam rolled it down. “We’re good, no need to go rushing out of here,” Dean said. “It was clean. No gunshots. Went exactly how we wanted. Kid over there was the foster kid living with them at the time. He needs a new home. But we can talk about that on the way.” Dean looked over Sam’s shoulder at Cas. “You gonna, uh, hop out of Claire?”

Oh. Right. Cas laid back against the seat so the body wouldn’t drop during the transfer, and unleashed his grip on Claire’s brain stem. He latched onto Jimmy’s instead, feeling the stimuli run through the familiar nerves and muscles. He breathed through Jimmy’s trachea, letting the air fill his lungs before testing out the voice. “Dean?” He felt the air vibrate through Jimmy’s longer, thicker vocal folds and out into the air in a much deeper tone than Claire’s.

“Yeah, Cas?” Dean said immediately.

“I--I’m sorry.”

“Cas, you don’t--” Dean sighed. “I gotta get Jalen in the car, we’ll talk about this later.”

Dean walked back over to Jalen and began speaking to him briefly about what they were doing.

Claire fidgeted beside him. Cas rolled one of his True Eyes over to her. Claire rubbed her hand briefly and said, “Um, thanks.”

Cas frowned. “For the couple? Claire, um, I have...I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“They, uh. They were just...they were just human. I’m so sorry Claire. I’m so sorry. I didn’t...I knew they were just human, when I, when I smote them. They were just human.” He closed his eyes, all of them, and braced for Claire’s anger.

“So...I got something to tell you, too.”

Cas opened one of his True Eyes and glanced at her.

“I knew that. I knew they were human.”

Cas opened all his eyes again then and looked at her. “You..you knew?”

Claire opened her mouth to say something, but then Dean was opening the back door. “Claire, scootch to the middle seat.”

Claire began moving over to squeeze in besides Cas, but Sam interrupted. “Uh, Claire, you wanna sit up here?”

“You don’t want shotgun?” Claire asked.

“No, he just knows you don’t want to sit next to me for the next nine hours,” Cas said evenly.

The whole car got very quiet then. Cas looked down at Jimmy’s hands. “I didn’t mean to--I was just explaining.”

“I’m fine where I am,” Claire said abruptly. “Besides, I don’t think your long legs could handle being in the backseat, Sam.”

“She’s got a point,” Dean said.

Claire moved up against Cas and Jalen squeezed in on her other side.

“Alright, out of my seat, Sam,” Dean said.

Sam sighed, got out of the driver’s seat, and walked around to the other side of the car.

“Jalen, what kind of music you like?” Dean asked, fiddling with the dial on the radio.

“Um, I like rap,” Jalen said.

Castiel expected Dean to say something derogatory about Jalen’s choice, or complain, but Dean did nothing of the sort. He just turned the dial until he landed on “Trap Queen” by Fetty Wap. And Castiel would never admit to Dean that he had known all the words to that one  _ before _ Metatron had dumped all human literature, art, and media into his head.

Dean pulled out of the parking lot, leaving Bloomington, Illinois in the rearview mirror.

* * *

The road trip went fairly smoothly, except for the part where Dean and Sam had a rip-roaring argument while they were still in Bloomington regarding what to do with Jalen. Sam berated Dean for even taking the kid in the first place; according to him, they should have left an anonymous tip for the police and let the foster care system swallow him back up. Dean had been absolutely appalled at the idea of Jalen being left there with the dead bodies while he waited for the police, and held that giving the kid back to the system would be nothing short of criminal. Sam had countered that what they were doing to him now would probably be just as traumatic, and did he really want kidnapping on his record if they were linked to this in any way? Claire had ended the conversation by saying that for what it was worth, her life had vastly improved after the Winchesters had left her with Jody, and that she sided with Dean. And also that the most traumatic thing they were doing to Jalen at this point was yelling at each other, so they better shut the hell up. And that was that.

By the time they pulled back into the parking lot of Claire’s high school, it was in the darkest hours of the morning. Dean turned down Eminem’s “Rap God” (Cas had never been sure how the rapper’s skill was supposed to confer divine status on him) and parked the car. He turned to Claire. “How are we gonna explain to Jody that you got back from your volleyball trip in the middle of the night?”

“You kidding? The band kids are always rolling in at this time of night from their competitions.”

Dean shrugged. “Okay, give her a call.”

Claire pulled out her phone and called Jody. Dean got out of the car to stretch his legs. Cas followed suit. He knew that now was probably not a good time to have a conversation with Dean about what had taken place back at the house, but he simply couldn’t wait another day while they drove back to the Bunker. “Dean?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You said, back at the house, that you knew. That the couple was human. And Claire said that, too. In the car.”

Dean stopped stretching and slowly turned around. Claire had been informing Sam of Jody’s answer, but stopped talking at Cas’s words.

Dean took in a large breath. “Yeah.”

“Then why...I thought you only hunted non-humans? You’ve made it clear to me, countless times, that no matter what a human does you will not hunt them. It is an immunity you extend only to your kind--not to monsters, not to demons, not to...angels…” Cas thought back on the angel blade,  _ his own talon _ , that Sam had thrust into his back, when he had made that desperate bid for Purgatory. “I don’t understand.”

Dean’s brow furrowed again. “Cas…” He looked off towards the school for a moment, then said, “Lily told me about...about your... _ nutritional requirements _ .”

At first Cas didn’t understand. “Nutritional requirements? Dean, what does powering my vessel have to do with…”

No. Dean couldn’t possibly mean that.

“Dean, did you...was that…”

“Lily told me you needed a human soul or two. So we got a couple that nobody would miss.”

Cas momentarily forgot to pilot Jimmy’s body, letting it stand there loosely, still. “Cas?” Dean said hesitantly.

“You...you arranged that. That was the plan all along. That’s why you took me instead of Sam.”

“Yeah. So, uh, don’t feel too bad about it, Cas. We just needed to, we needed to get you better, okay?”

Fire and lightning built up in Cas’s Throats like bile, itching to froth over. “Don’t feel too bad about it?”

“Yeah, Cas, it was--”

“ _ Don’t feel too bad about it? _ ”

Dean was silent.

“Dean, do you know when the last time I--the last time I consumed a human soul was?”

“Uh, you said that you gave it up when you joined the Host, right?”

“No! I mean, yes, but--I had just opened Purgatory, Dean! I was out of my mind--and you despised me! And afterwards I swore--I swore I would  _ never _ \--” He needed to slow down. He needed to collect himself. He was losing control of the vessel.

“So you killed a bunch of racist assholes. Not really a crime in my book.”

“Really? Because it certainly was back then!! You--I--you have no idea! No idea how difficult it was! Everytime I break that vow, to go back. To give it up again. What do you want, Dean? What do you want from me? I don’t understand what you want from me!”

“What are you talking about?”

“From the moment I met you--my apologies, the moment you met me, because the first time I met you you were screaming and writhing in my claws--from that first moment, you didn’t trust me. Even though I had just risked my life pulling you from Hell. Do you know how many of my garrison I lost? Angels I had known for millions of years, just to pull  _ you _ from Hell. But still you held me at arms’ length. You wouldn’t give me your trust, but you still expected me to give up everything I had ever known and cared about to free you from Zacariah’s clutches. You didn’t ask--you demanded.

“And even  _ then _ , I was not worthy of your full trust and companionship. No matter what I did, what I sacrificed, I learned that with you, Dean, humans were born with the benefit of the doubt. But I had to earn it. Why do you think I hid my true nature from you, and our Bond? Because I  _ couldn’t lose you,  _ Dean. You were all I had left.” Cas could feel his iLps curling back over his Fangs, his Tails flicking back and forth in agitation. “And then, and then I truly lost everything. So I did the only thing I could do. I came to you. And for the first time, I had nothing to give. And as soon as I had nothing to give, you wanted nothing to do with me. You put me out on the street.”

Dean was stone still, but the light was reflecting off of his eyes in an odd way. “Cas...I--”

“We’re only ‘friends’ when it serves you. I should exercise free will--as long as it serves your ends. And you only care about my welfare when there’s something in it for you. You know, Nora used to hang a sign next to the cash register. ‘You break it, you buy it’.” He shook his vessel’s head. “I should have listened to Balthazar.”

There was a long silence. It was a tearful Claire who finally broke it. “Cas. Don’t get on Dean’s case. It was me. I wanted Ronald and Sally dead. I tricked you.”

“No, Sam and I started this whole thing. And this isn’t really about the couple, is it, Cas,” Dean said. It wasn’t a question.

Cas’s bluster completely evaporated when he realized why the light in Dean’s eyes looked so strange. His eyes were watery.

Cas had seen Dean do that a few times--hold back tears. He had quickly found out that weeping publicly was considered an embarrassment by many humans, and males especially were discouraged from it. He’d always been envious of the Winchesters’ ability to do this. He himself had been completely incapable of controlling that response throughout his time as a human. Especially that first night, after Dean had told him he couldn’t stay.

“No, it’s not,” Cas admitted wearily.

Dean nodded and seemed to think. Then he said, “I’ve been a shit friend to you, Cas. I know I have. And I didn’t appreciate what you’d given up. I’m just starting to realize how much you did. But this--this is not about, about using you, Cas. You’re right--not that long ago I wouldn’t have understood all this. The whole soul-eating thing. But now I do. I didn’t tell you what we were doing because I knew that you were too good a person to agree to it. But I let you starve once, Cas. And I’m not gonna let it happen again.”

Cas covered his Eyes with his Wings and sat back on his Haunches. “I can’t--I can’t believe I did that. Dean, you can’t--please. I know you arranged this, but, but please don’t think of me as a monster. I couldn’t bear for you to think that way of me. You’re all I have. You and your brother. You’re all I have left.”

“You were protecting your vessel, right?” Claire chimed in quietly.

“What?” Cas said, drawing his Wings from his Eyes.

“You made a promise to my father. To protect his family. You were acting on that promise. I was in danger, and you smote my attackers. Doesn’t matter if we set it up that way. It’s not your fault,” Claire said, shrugging.

Cas plastered a sad smile to Jimmy’s face. It was an expression that had taken quite some time to master. “Thank you, Claire.”

Claire unfolded her arms and, to Cas’s surprise, pulled his vessel into an embrace. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said, and for a moment there she sounded just like Jody.

“We’re not strangers. You are my vessel,” Cas said, confused.

Claire laughed. “Yeah. Well, text me and stuff. I’m assuming those cavemen gave you a phone?”

“If by cavemen you are referring to the Winchesters, then yes.”

“Cool.”

“Hey, Claire,” Dean said suddenly. “You want a little brother?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind, but I’m pretty sure Jody would go insane. And the problem is she’d be too nice to say no. So maybe try to pass him off to one of your other weird friends. And text me if you can’t find anyone.”

Dean shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“Okay, now scram, Jody’s on her way,” Claire said, ushering Dean and Cas back into the car.

The Impala pulled out of the parking lot just as Jody pulled in on the other side. In another five minutes, they were back on the highway.

* * *

By the time they rolled into the Bunker’s garage, the sky was blue. And not the pale blue of dawn, but the solid blue of a morning that was almost afternoon. Sam had taken the wheel after they decided that stopping at a motel with a kidnapped minor was probably not the best idea.

“Dean. Hey, wake up, we’re here,” Sam said, shoving his snoring brother.

“What, what,” Dean muttered, snorting loudly and jumping out his sleep.

“I said we’re here. C’mon, Lily said she set up a bedroom for Jalen while we figure out what to do.”

“Oh. Cool.” Dean got out of the car stiffly. “You know, I know she wanted to kill Cas, but other than that she’s turning out to be a pretty cool person.”

Cas rolled his Eyes. He turned to the sleeping child beside him. Jalen’s face was pressed against the window.

“Jalen? Jalen, it’s time to wake up.”

Jalen’s eyes fluttered. He turned his head towards Cas, blinking away sleep. For a moment he seemed to not understand where he was. Then his eyes suddenly widened.

“Where’s here?” he said quietly, peering out the window.

“We have sort of a Batcave,” Dean said. “It’s a secret bunker. We’re gonna keep you here until we find a new family for you.”

“New family?” Jalen said, guardedly.

“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be someone we know. And if anything happens, you can just call us. Cool?”

Jalen didn’t look convinced.

“Here,” Cas said, an idea coming to him, “did you ever go to church? Or temple, or a mosque?”

Jalen nodded. “Church with my mom. Before she got sick.”

Castiel nodded. “You heard of angels, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m actually an angel.”

Jalen gave him a skeptical look. “I thought angels had wings. And halos.”

“Well, my wings were too big to fit in the car. So I left them behind. But you remember Claire?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, she’s an angel, too. And you saw her use her powers, so you know it’s not make-believe.”

Jalen seemed to think about this. He crossed his arms and curled into the seat. “Her powers were scary, though. I thought angels were nice.”

Castiel felt a sharp, sick feeling at Jalen’s words, but he ploughed on. “I know. But sometimes angels use their powers in a scary way, to save people. Did you ever hear of--” Cas stopped to think of a story from the Christian holy texts, one that might be familiar to a child. “--the story of the Hebrews escaping Egypt?”

Jalen nodded again. “The angels are scary in that one.”

“Yes, but they were trying to protect the Hebrews. So you see? Sometimes angels can be scary. But that’s not the point. The point is, if anything frightening is happening to you, you just pray to me, okay? Close your eyes and think very hard. Think, ‘Castiel, I need your help.’ And I promise you Dean, Sam, and I will help you. That way, even if you don’t have a phone, you can still reach us.”

Jalen seemed to consider his words. Finally, he said quietly, “Okay. I’ll do that.”

“Okay!” Dean said cheerily. “Let’s get in and get some food. I’m starving. Jalen, you like burgers?”

“Dean, it’s still morning. Maybe try some breakfast food,” Sam chided.

“Fine. Jalen, you like...what do we got in the way of cereal?”

“Well fortunately you’re still a man-child so we have Fruit Loops in the house,” Sam said.

“Fruit Loops! Everybody loves fruit loops. Have you ever met a person, you say, ‘let’s get some fruit loops’, they say, ‘no I don’t like no fruit loops--’”

“That’s  _ Shrek _ , except it’s  _ par-fey _ , not fruit loops,” Jalen said, giggling.

Dean helped him out of the car and clapped him on the back. “Man knows the classics. Guess what. I even got that movie. Maybe we should watch it tonight. Sound like a good idea?”

Jalen smiled, nearly skipping to the garage door. “Can we have popcorn?”

“Of course, who has movie night without popcorn?”

Dean and Jalen continued discussing the night’s plans as they all continued into the bunker. Lily met them at the bottom of the stairs.

“You must be Jalen!” Lily said, crouching down in front of the child and smiling up at him. “I’m Lily. I’m a friend of Dean and Sam...and Castiel,” she said. There was barely a hesitation before she said Cas’s name. Cas felt a stew of conflicting emotions bubble up in his Throats that he couldn’t name.

“Hi,” Jalen said quietly. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Lily.”

“Oh, what a gentleman!” Lily said. She stood up and walked to the stove. “I heard that someone likes mac ‘n cheese. I made some grown-up mac ‘n cheese for us. It’s even got chicken in it. You wanna try it?”

“It smells good,” Jalen said.

A few minutes later they were all around the table, eating grown-up mac ‘n cheese (Sam had muttered to him that it was actually called ‘chicken alfredo’). Jalen seemed to approve, because he didn’t even seem to remember the fruit loops after the first bite. Cas watched Lily and Jalen interact the whole time. She seemed to be an entirely different person around the child; her teeth were bared frequently in a smile, folds of skin crinkled around her eyes, and she laughed more. Castiel had never understood why humans made such short, choppy spasms with their breathing when they were happy or found something humorous. He thought that maybe he would understand, once he was human. But he had never had occasion to experience the impulse to laugh. Crying, yes, and it was fascinating how relieving the act could be. But laughter? No. But seeing Lily do so now made his feathers fluff for some reason.

Maybe it was good to see her eyes filled with something other than stale grief.

As promised, they all sat down that night to watch the movie that Dean had been talking about. The one about the monster and his donkey friend. Dean bust out laughing when the donkey realized that the dragon was a girl for some reason. Cas felt the need to explain to him that celestial dragons didn’t actually have gender and that they certainly wouldn’t wear lipstick like the one in the movie, but this only made Dean laugh harder, to the point where he almost choked on his beer. Lily and Sam seemed to find it humorous, too, but they didn’t explain the joke to Cas. He finally realized that the joke was probably at his own expense, and turned back to the screen, choosing to ignore it.

After the movie, he retired to the room that Sam and Dean had offered him. He walked over to the desk he had moved there and placed his vessel in its chair. The rest of the bunker was going to retire soon, to enter into much needed states of unconsciousness. Castiel remembered sleeping--drifting off, waking up in a completely different time. Sometimes there were vivid dreams, but most of the time there was nothing. Not nothing like the void of space. Just nothing. No experience. It was really quite alarming. He imagined that that must be what it is like, after a celestial is destroyed. No existence. Just nothing. In almost five hundred million years Castiel had not truly been unconscious, not once. He had felt every second tick by of his very long life, from the moment he had flared into being. The gaps of nothingness that were a standard part of every day as a human had been nothing short of horrifying.

And they had been disconcerting in a far more immediate and real way as well. A lack of consciousness also came with the peril of harm or even death to the sleeper. That’s why humans lived in shelters in the first place. But on a bench in a park, with a few sheets of newspaper for cover...it had been very hard to let himself slip into unconsciousness. He was grateful he didn’t have to deal with it anymore.

Part of him wished that there was still a reason for him to watch over the Winchesters as they slept. As relieved as he was that his humans now had a permanent sheltering place, it had always felt so right, throwing one of his Wings over whatever motel they were sleeping in. Keeping an Eye on all directions, to guard them from harm. Even when they hadn’t even known he was there. Now, not only did they not need him to guard them, he wouldn’t be of too much help even if they did. Now it was his humans that had to care for him, feed him, guard him in his helplessness. And that just wasn’t the order of things. It wasn’t right.

Cas knew now the true reason behind Dean throwing him out of the bunker when he had first become human. Buthes couldn’t help but feel that if he had been even a fraction of his former usefulness, Dean would not have been so quick to condemn him to the streets.

And what was worse was that Castiel couldn’t even blame him for his decision.

With nothing better to do, Castiel studied the dust motes spinning through the air, their composition. Tiny clumps of dead skin cells here, bits of insect wings there. Mostly organic, broken down into microscopic pieces, being returned to the Earth for recycling. It was a beautiful system, the cycle his Father had put in motion. Incredible. Every mortal creature had indirectly come from the Earth, and every mortal creature would one day be returned to it.

Including Sam and Dean.

He really needed to find something to occupy his mind during these nighttime hours.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Cas said, turning his vessel to greet the visitor.

Dean stepped into the room, surveying it. He was going to say something sarcastic, Cas knew it.

“You know, generally you put furniture in a room, Cas. What the hell do you do in here, anyways?”

There it was.

“I have no need for it. This room only provides the illusion of my privacy to you. Just because I’ve placed my vessel here doesn’t mean that all of me is in this room. You were just talking to Lily about finding Jalen a new home, for example. You were in the library. I know because one of my Heads was in the library as well.”

Dean looked disconcerted. “You don’t place any part of yourself in my room, do you?”

Cas rolled his Eyes where Dean couldn’t see. “I try to give you your privacy. But it’s difficult not to See. Walls are translucent where I keep my True Body.” Noticing the expression Dean pulled at this information, Cas quickly followed with, “But I can sleep outside if you want. I was born outside, like the donkey in the movie.”

Dean actually laughed at that. “Dude, did you just make a  _ Shrek _ reference?”

“I suppose so.”

Dean came over and clapped Cas’s vessel on the shoulder. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

See, this was where Cas stopped understanding idiomatic human language. Hope for him? For what? His failing health? His redemption? And what did either of those things have to do with a movie?

“Dean, do you think there’s hope for me?” Cas said suddenly. He actually wasn’t sure where that question came from. He hadn’t known it was in his mind before it popped out of his vessel’s mouth.

Dean’s smile dropped suddenly and his face turned serious. He crouched in front of Cas’s vessel and looked up into its eyes. “Yeah, Cas, I do. You’re gonna fly again.”

Castiel wasn’t entirely sure that that was what he had been asking, but he went with it anyways. “Why?”

Dean seemed to think on his response. “Because,” he said slowly, “because I’ve been beyond all hope before. I’ve been in that place, Cas. And you know what happened then?”

“What?” Cas said, riveted by Dean’s tone. He rarely spoke so carefully.

“An angel saved me.”

Cas turned Jimmy’s head away, not sure how to respond. Finally, he said, “Even if it is possible, I’d be the last person to deserve it.”

Dean laughed bitterly. “And you think I did?”

Cas gave a slight smile at this. He turned back to Dean. “Dean, I--apologize for my reaction today. When I realized what you had planned.”

Dean nodded. “Don’t. I probably would have reacted that way if it were the other way around. Actually I probably would have been more of a dick about it.”

“I just--I’ve caused such misery, over the past decade. On Earth, in Heaven. And I try to repent, I try to cleanse myself of sin, but somehow I can’t seem to separate myself from it.”

“Yeah, that’s free will for ya,” Dean said, sighing. “But, Cas, you gotta stop being so hard on yourself. You’re always focusing on what you’ve done wrong. Can’t you just for once give yourself a pat on the back for all the shit you got right? Like, think of where all your mistakes started. Would you have ever made those mistakes if you hadn’t given your family the finger cuz you thought it was the  _ right thing to do _ ?”

Cas was silent for a while. He’d never really thought about it that way. Especially since, at the time, he had been so unsure of his decision. Balthazar’s words had rung in his head every day.

Dean looked concerned. “Cas?” he said, carefully. “You do still think it was the right thing to do, right? You don’t...you don’t regret it?”

Cas snapped back to the conversation. Studying Dean’s face, he realized that his human was actually worried about his response. Not sure of what it would be.

“Of course it was the right decision, Dean,” he said gently. “Of  _ course _ it was.” He almost followed it up with ‘I’ve never doubted that’, but that wouldn’t be entirely truthful. “There were times, at the beginning, where I doubted,” he admitted. “I was...I was frightened. Lonely. Grieving the home I had turned my back on. And I didn’t know how to explain that to you.”

“Back then I probably wouldn’t have cared, even if you had,” Dean said sourly.

Cas nodded. “But now, after all we’ve been through…” He sighed. “This is my home. You, you and Sam, are my family. And I could never go back, not in a million years.”

“That’s not really a long time for you, is it, though,” Dean said, huffing a laugh. Then he looked away. “Shit, Cas, I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you. I really am. And I’m trying to make up for it now, but I know it’s all a drop in the fucking bucket. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you saved me from Hell, and I couldn’t even give you a fucking room to sleep in when you really needed one. I’m sorry, Cas. I know it doesn’t mean jackshit, but I’m sorry.”

The silence that followed rang in Cas’s Ears, causing ripples throughout his Grace. He felt his vessel’s mouth drop open, but he didn’t remember moving it.

“Uh, Cas?” Dean asked. “You good, buddy?” Again he had that concerned look, as if Cas’s response actually mattered to him. As if something of importance hung on his answer.

Cas shook himself. “I’m--yes, I’m ‘good’. I just, I wasn’t expecting that. Um, it means a lot to me, Dean. Especially with all of the mistakes I’ve made.”

“Yeah, well, let’s not count them up. I’m afraid I might get the higher score on that one. How about we say we just start again?”

“I don’t want to start again, though.”

“Oh?” Dean looked taken aback, possibly even a little hurt.

“I wouldn’t take back the things we’ve been through together, Dean. I--over five hundred million years, I’ve hardly changed. Now, in the space of less than a decade--I don’t think I would have recognized myself if I’d had the chance to meet myself as I am today.”

“That a good thing?”

“It’s a thing. Neither good nor bad. But even with everything that has happened, all the terrible mistakes I’ve made, my exile, the fear, the loneliness, I still think I like ‘Cas, Angel of the Winchesters’ rather than ‘Castiel, Angel of the Lord’. Does that make any sense?”

The skin around Dean’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “Yeah. It’s got a nice ring to it.” He got up and clapped Cas’s vessel on the shoulder again. “Well, I’m taking a shower, so keep all your Heads out of the bathroom, okay?”

Cas nodded. “Even after being human for a while, I still don’t understand why humans are so ashamed of their natural state. But I will stay out of the bathroom.”

“Let’s just say your guys’s natural state is a lot prettier than ours.”

_ Not mine _ , Cas almost said, but even he realized that was too maudlin for the current tone of conversation. It made him wonder, though. “Dean, I have a question.”

Dean turned back to him. “Shoot.”

“I feel as if, if you had seen my True Visage when we first met, you would have categorized me as a monster. Am I correct?”

Dean flexed his jaw. Then he sighed. “Yeah, probably.”

“Then, if I may ask, why has your reaction been so different now than it would have been initially? Because you have responded with much more sympathy than I would have anticipated from you.”

“Because--” Dean began, then paused. “Part of it’s because I know you. I trust you, or at least I trust you to do what you think is right even if it’s dumb.”

“You usually give humans the benefit of the doubt, though, even if you don’t know them.”

Dean nodded, looking away. “Yeah. I used to. But maybe I’ve grown up a little bit.”

“Grown up?”

“Let me put it this way: If the Dean of five years had got to meet the Dean of today, I don’t think I would have recognized myself. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Dean said, smiling.

Cas nodded, chewing over Dean’s response. “I appreciate that, Dean.”

“See you in the morning, Cas,” Dean said, turning to leave.

Cas watched the dust motes swirl in the wake of the closing door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sort of a cool down chapter in between plot points. Because it's not as plot heavy, I'm not as sure about it, so I would really appreciate feedback on whether it worked out and how I can improve such sequences in future works:)
> 
> Also, random note, but I had Cas swear in his internal monologue early in the chapter, in italics. I sort of figure that being homeless for a while he may have picked up on some of that, and might think it occasionally even if it feels unnatural to him (hence italics). Also Dean swears a lot in this fic, mostly because I assume that every time he says "friggin'" that's what he's actually saying, and CW just can't let the real word fly. If those choices sit wrong with anyone, throw it in a comment for me:)
> 
> Also Shrek references. Because Shrek.


	15. The Long Haul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Lily attend to Cas's wounds.

The next week saw them back in the meadow, because Cas’s injuries weren’t going to heal overnight. Sam spent a lot of time with Jalen back at the bunker while Lily gave Dean an abbreviated version of Angel Anatomy and Healthcare 101. Dean felt bad for the kid; he couldn’t imagine what Sam was getting up to with him. Probably watching Discovery Channel and feeding him all kinds of salads. Dean would have to make a point to pick up some ice cream and a video game next time he went into town.

Lily, for her part, had procured an absolutely insane amount of specialized stuff for fixing an angel. Ointments, spell books, thick, silky ropes that were apparently bandages of some kind, as well as enormous tools that looked like medieval torture devices but were apparently just needles and tweezers and stuff. Dean spent most of his time helping her haul it all around. Sometimes he felt like he was in a  _ Honey, I Shrunk the Kids _ movie. He was a little ant running around on a veterinary table, trying to stitch up an iguana, dragging needles the size of trees all over the damn place.

On the second day he’d given in and bought a junky old pick-up and some supplies at the nearest Home Depot. He’d spent the rest of the night and a good portion of the morning jerry-rigging the truck to be able to drag all the supplies behind it and even lift it slightly. It sort of worked.

After a strenuous session of binding what was left of Cas’s fourth face, Dean and Lily took a break on the back of the pick-up. Dean held out a Mike’s Hard to her. She didn’t drink beer. At first Dean had figured she just didn’t drink, but she’d quickly made it clear that she thought beer tasted like fermented buffalo urine. When Dean had asked her how she knew what  _ that _ tasted like, she just replied, “Oh, I can see you stick with the basic spells,” and left it at that.

Lily broke the cap off on the tip of one of the unused needles. “Ready for the Leviathan scars next? We should start stitching those up soon.”

Dean frowned. “Uh, you gonna decontaminate that needle before we use it?” He hitched his chin at the needle she’d just used.

Lily looked at it. “Angels can handle germs. They’re not made from the same stuff. Not organic. Not really affected by it. Besides, the bottle’s probably a lot cleaner than the bed of that piece of shit you’ve been hauling it around behind.”

Dean shrugged. “Good point. But, uh--those scars? Made years ago. It’s a little late for stitches, wouldn’t you say?”

“I mean, they’re not ever gonna heal completely, but you get a much longer window with angels. For Christ’s sake, they’re still oozing Leviathan. Four years on, right? We could probably get it down to a thin line, at least, instead of a gaping hole. We’re gonna need to graft some skin, too, over those ribs. Not really the best idea to fly into battle with exposed ribs and internal organs and all.”

Dean looked back over at the vast canvas of skin covering Cas’s side, and the gaping hole the size of the bunker’s twenty-car garage in the center of it. It still made him nauseous to think that Cas had been running around with that open wound for nearly four years. “Yeah. Where do you take the skin from? Chest, or something?” Dean was pretty well-versed in a lot of emergency care, but skin grafting was beyond him.

“Good Lord, no,” Lily said. “It’s too much. We’ll have to find the skin of a similar creature. I’m actually still working on that.”

“A similar creature?”

“You know, like sometimes they use pig skin for grafts on human burn victims? Well, we need something else, something celestial instead of organic.”

“Like a cherub, or something?”

“No, no, not a sentient person. A celestial animal, maybe a nebula or something. We’ll have to summon one.”

“Summon a...okay you’ve completely lost me.”

Lily put down her drink and sighed. “I keep forgetting how little you know of the celestial world. You know, back in the old days a Bonded mortal knew as much of Enochian culture as their celestial did of theirs. I’m told Lilith spoke fluent Enochian. And Arthur of the Britons could forge his own angelic sabers from Nimuë’s talons.”

“Okay, I get, I get it, I’m a shitty serpent warrior, whatever. Not my fault Cas never told me about any of this crap,” Dean said, even though he knew that wasn’t entirely true. “Celestial critters. Explain.”

Lily rested her chin on her hand. “I should probably get you in the right mindset, then. Do you understand quantum physics?”

Dean laughed. “Do I look like I understand quantum physics?”

“Neither do I. And I was born long before the theory of relativity, mind you. It’s Greek to me, except that I can actually speak Greek. I can’t speak theoretical physics.” She then bent down and picked up a fallen leaf from the bed of the truck, upon which a tiny aphid crawled. “Do you suppose this little beastie understands quantum physics?”

Dean snorted. “What?”

“Answer the question.”

“No. Why?”

“Is there a difference between the way in which  _ you _ don’t understand quantum physics and the way that this creature doesn’t?”

Dean sighed. Sam would love this conversation. A couple of weeks ago Dean would have just rolled his eyes. He never understood why people cared about philosophy, theoretical shit like this, stuff you couldn’t see. If it didn’t affect the real world in any way, who cared? But he was starting to realize that that sort of thinking was maybe part of the reason why he hadn’t known until a week ago that he was in some sort of mystical spiritual bond with his best friend, so he resolved to hear her out. “Yeah.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know, aphids are stupid?”

Lily shrugged. “Allow me to translate that from ape-man to modern English. You don’t understand quantum physics--but you do understand the  _ concept _ of theoretical physics, and that there is knowledge out there to be had. But the aphid is so beneath that kind of reasoning, it doesn’t even understand that there is a world outside of the plants that it eats. It doesn’t even have the capacity for abstract thinking in any way, much less the ability to grasp the sciences.”

“So, what does all that have to do with celestial creatures?”

“In this analogy, your seraph is the human, and the Heaven that he comes from is the world we know. And you are--”

“The aphid?”

“Essentially. And you live your whole life out on this little leaf.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Since you only seem to speak in movies, let me put it another way. You know the ending of  _ Men in Black _ ?”

Dean nodded. It never failed to surprise him just how pop culture literate this Victorian era woman was.

“Our universe is just a marble in the celestial world, and the archangels toss them around to pass the time.”

Dean nodded again, this time in understanding. “So basically Cas comes from a whole universe I don’t know about?”

“Complete with Enochian civilization, celestial wildlife, and its own set of natural laws. You just don’t recognize it as such, because a sufficiently advanced alien species is indistinguishable from the divine.”

“So what do these alien critters look like anyway?”

“Do you know what alebrijes are?”

“No.” 

“They’re Mexican folk sculptures. Traditionally of animals, brightly colored. They originated with an artist, Linares. He came up with the idea after recovering from a deathly illness. While he was on the brink of death, he’d dreamt of these colorful, strange animals, and decided to capture their image in his work.”

“I’m guessing he actually got a sneak peak of Heaven before the Halo Brigade decided to postpone his appointment?”

“Exactly.”

“So how exactly do you think we’re gonna get a hold of one of these animals?”

Lily shrugged. “We’d have to find a way to get into Heaven, I suppose. Which, believe me, will be less fun than it sounds like.”

“Oh, I know, I’ve been.”

“I meant outside of the lab they keep the souls of expired mortals in.”

“Oh...yeah, I guess not.”

“Especially because we may have to sneak into a Healing Wing. It’s not like you can grab any old creature from the wild.”

“Right. Of course not.” Dean sighed and chucked his empty beer bottle into the trash bag that sat in the bed of the truck. Something was niggling at the back of Dean’s mind. Something Lily had said. Then it hit him.

“When you were talking about Serpent Warriors, you, uh, mentioned a name I recognized.”

“King Arthur? Yes, I assumed you knew the Lady of the Lake wasn’t human.”

“No, no. The other name. Lilith. You’re not talking about...about the First Demon, are you?”

Lily drew a breath in understanding. “Of course. I forgot. You have ample experience with her, I suppose.”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it. She was uh...Bonded to an angel?”

Lily nodded slowly. “I’m sure you can make an educated guess as to which one.”

“But why would he…? I don’t understand, if he cared about her the way that...I mean, if she was his friend, why did he…turn her into a demon?”

Lily rolled her eyes then, and her voice was suddenly steely. “Don’t believe everything the angels say. Akobel always said that celestials have a ‘rich oral history’...really that was just a polite way of saying they lie. A lot. And the Host is the worst, because they think it’s in service to their Lord. The only thing worse than a liar is a self-righteous liar.”

Dean was a little surprised by her vehemence at first, but he adjusted quickly. “Guess you’ve got ‘ample experience’ with that, huh?”

Lily guzzled the last of her wine cooler, chucked it in the trash bag, and grabbed another one. “No shit.” After breaking off the cap, she continued, this time in a calmer tone. “Have you found a home for Jalen yet?”

Dean sighed. “No. I’ve been running through all the names I can think of. We’ve got another cop friend, I guess, and there’s Garth. He’s good with kids, as long as Jalen’s okay with living with a bunch of vegetarian werewolves. But, uh, other than that, no. Jody was really perfect, because she lost her husband and...son, you know, and she, uh, I think having a family now is, uh…” He trailed off, realizing that the conversation had veered into very awkward territory.

Lily was looking resolutely at her drink. “I’ve still got all her old things, you know.”

“What?”

“I know he’s a boy, so he won’t want her dollies, and I know things have changed. Children mostly play with technology now. But I still have her violin, some wooden swords that Akobel and her used to play with. Things like that. If he wants them or anything. Looks like the bunker is short on children’s toys.”

Dean had no earthly idea how to respond to this, so he found himself asking stupidly, “So you...carry all this stuff around with you?”

Lily chuckled. “No. No. I’m not a nomad. Like yourself, I travel frequently, but I have a homebase. In Metairie.”

“Metairie?”

“Suburb of New Orleans.”

“Like...like a house?”

Lily gave a small smile and rolled her eyes. “Yes, like a house. Not a motel or a nuclear hideout. A genuine house. You’ve heard of those I trust?”

“How in the hell do you afford to live there?”

“I bought it back in the 1920s. They were just starting to develop a real neighborhood there. It was a lot cheaper.”

“Why there?”

“To be close to a center of both pagan and Christian knowledge. The syncretic nature of the faith practiced there means that there is more information to be had in general on celestial life, angel or otherwise.”

“Huh. You know, that’s where Cipactli is supposed to be hiding out.”

Lily twisted the bottle in her hands. “I know. But that’s not why I’m helping. It isn’t really home to me. Not a home if you have no one to share it with.”

Dean was getting uncomfortable with this conversation. Not because he didn’t feel for Lily; he did. But he was starting to get a little worried about having her in control of the needle if she finished her drink. “You wanna get started?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lily said, and leapt off the bed of the trunk.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean called out as he strode across the clearing, “We’re gonna have to have you lay on your side for this one.”

Cas swiveled his wolf-head around to face Dean, then gave a groan and began to flop on his side.

“No, no. Hey! Mushu! Your other side, doofus!” Dean yelled, turning tail and running as Cas’s massive form began to fall toward him.

When Cas was finally situated properly, Dean and Lily hauled the needle and thread (which was really more of a rope given its size) up onto his side via one of his tails. Dean threaded the needle and tied it in a tight sailor’s knot.

“Alright,” he said, standing up and wiping his hands against each other. “So what do angels use for local anesthetic? You got anything in your Mary Poppins bag?”

Lily looked up at him. “Um, no. I thought you already knew that.”

“Wait, what?”

“Of course not. I’m a professor, not a doctor.”

“Well, then, we can’t do this today.”

“What are you talking about? It’s my understanding that you and Sam give each other stitches all the time. Do you have access to federally-controlled anesthetizing substances?”

“But this is different!”

“How is this any different?”

_ Because it’s Cas _ , Dean wanted to shout, but he found himself desperately searching for a valid reason. “Well, usually the stitchee has a few shots in him before we go at it.”

“Okaaay...do you want to buy out a whole liquor store? Because that’s what it’ll take to booze up your seraph, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of money just lying around.”

“And these injuries are waaay worse than anything I’ve had to stitch up before,” Dean continued, ignoring her. “I mean, I can see bone through most of these. Usually Sam and I give up at that point and go to a hospital.”

Lily sighed, letting her arms hang over her knees. “Dean, I appreciate how hard this is for you. Believe me, I do. But your seraph is stronger than you think. I know it can be hard to remember for you, but your Castiel was a soldier for hundreds of millions of years. A captain, too. And he led one of the most dangerous missions in angelic history, and triumphed.”

“What mission was that?” Dean said, suddenly eager to hear about all of his angel’s past. For some reason, the idea that Castiel,  _ his _ Castiel, had a badass past he knew hardly anything about, made him a little proud.

Lily gave him an odd look.

“What?”

“What one do you think?”

“I don’t--” Oh. That one. The “save Dean’s sorry ass from Hell” one. “I didn’t realize the actual mission was such a big deal.”

“Where do you think he lost half of one of his faces?”

Dean froze. “ _ That’s _ where that happened?” Ever since he’d been introduced to the extent of Cas’s wounds, he’d figured that that particular one had happened during the civil war, or one of the times that Cas had gotten blown up.

Lily nodded. “I was keeping tabs on him. As well as everyone who was involved in May’s and Akobel’s deaths.”

Dean gazed along the mile-long expanse of Cas’s spine, tracing it down to the heavily bandaged face that rested on one of his forepaws. “No wonder he was so pissy with me when I was being a douche to him those first few months.”

Lily shrugged. “Oh, he probably deserved it. If I remember correctly he could be one hell of an arrogant bastard before you broke him. Married to the job, that one. I’m still a little surprised you managed to get him to rebel, but I guess love makes you crazy.”

Dean decided to ignore the  _ broke him _ part of Lily’s comment and gazed fondly at Cas’s faces. “Yeah, well, I gotta think being the best damn flyer in Heavenly history gives him the right to be a little arrogant. You know my angel’s the best flyer in all of Heaven?”

Lily smiled and rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright, don’t go all mushy on me now. Now make yourself useful and hold the needle in place, here, squat down here like this.” She demonstrated, holding the end of the needle with both hands, positioned right over the skin just outside the start of the wound.

“Oh, so you give me the boring part?”

“Unless you’d rather hammer the needle into him.”

“Holding needle in place. Got it.” Dean crouched down and grabbed hold of the needle from the bottom, while Lily braced it from the top. As Lily began to raise her hammer, Dean said, “Whoa, hey, shouldn’t we tell him that this is gonna hurt a bit?”

“Pretty sure he already knows. We did just spend a half hour dragging all this stuff up here.”

“Yeah, but, maybe just count to three or something?”

Lily rolled her eyes and lifted the hammer higher.

“Okay, jeez, whatever lady,” Dean muttered, turning back to his post.

Dean braced himself for the impact.  _ Come on, you and Sam do this kind of shit all the time _ , he thought, squaring his jaw.  _ This is no problem _ .

The first dry clang sounded from the strike of Lily’s hammer, and the needle broke skin, plummeting several inches into Cas’s side. Cas’s whole body twitched slightly, and Lily and Dean nearly toppled over. Cas raised one of his heads to scope out what they were doing. Taking in the scene before him, he simply rolled all of his Eyes back into his head and flopped back onto the floor.

“Hey, try not to scream too much,” Lily called out. “I’ve brought some noise-cancelling headphones along, but they can’t even block out my neighbor’s dog so I’m pretty sure they won’t be able to stand up to you.”

Cas just groaned in a clear “get on with it” gesture.

“One might think you’re almost enjoying this, Lily,” Dean said as they took up position again.

“Hey, I dropped my revenge mission on him and am now even helping heal him. Throw me a bone here,” Lily said, raising her hammer again.

It took three strikes before silver rivulets of Grace started to stream out. At this point, Cas’s chest started rising and falling rapidly. Dean tried to ignore it and simply held the needle still. When they finally punctured through the lip of skin to the other side, though, Cas let out a low whine. Dean couldn’t help it anymore; he dropped his end of the needle and placed his hands palm down on Cas’s side, sliding them softly over the feathers there.

“Hey, shh, buddy, it’s okay, it’s okay. Just a few stitches. You’re gonna be fine. I got you,” he soothed.

Cas huffed and let out a string of chords. Dean had only been studying Enochian for less than a week, but the words were simple enough.  **I’M NOT A FLEDGELING.**

“Dean, the needle,” Lily barked.

“Alright, alright,” Dean said, picking the needle back up. “Jesus.”

**WHAT ABOUT HIM?**

“Not--” Dean rolled his eyes. “Never mind.” Dean pulled backwards, putting his whole weight into the move. The needle moved through the punctured flesh with a sickening squelch, followed by the wet slither of the rope. Dean cussed slowly through his teeth at the sound. Even through all of his years as a hunter, he was sure he had never heard such a disgusting sound. He dropped the needle again and placed his hands on his knees.

“Hey, if you’re gonna throw up, do it over the side, and for God’s sake try not to hit Castiel’s feathers. That shit takes ages to clean,” he heard Lily say. Cas lifted his heads again and trumpeted something that, while unintelligible to Dean, was clearly in protest to the very idea.

“Yeah, no, I’m good, just give me a minute.” Dean breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth several times.

“This is the mighty Dean Winchester I’ve heard so much about? Would’ve thought you could handle watching someone else get a few stitches,” Lily snarked.

“Yeah, well, I’ve never really had an ant’s perspective on it before, okay?” Dean said defensively, raising his head to look at her.

Lily’s face softened. “I know. It’s harder when it’s your angel.”

“It’s not--” Dean scowled and walked back over to the needle. “Where were we?”

“We were just gonna go through the other side.”

“Well, let’s go, then.”

They continued on like that for several minutes. Hammer in, pull through, repeat on the other side. After about stitch three it was clear that, fledgeling or no, Cas was in a significant amount of pain. He was careful to keep his torso very still, but every few seconds his tails would beat against the ground furiously, and his jaws would sporadically snap at the grass, tearing up great chunks of earth. A constant, guttural moan traveled through his throats and slipped between his clenched fangs, making the entire platform that was his torso vibrate. Dean and Lily eventually put on the headphones, just in case Cas accidentally opened one of his mouths. Dean did  _ not _ wanna know what that would sound like.

Dean, for his part, tried to empty himself of all emotion, funneling all of his focus into the strenuous routine. Hammer in, pull through, repeat on the other side. Occasionally they would have to break to flush out the wound--it seemed that no matter how many times they cleaned it, more leftover Leviathan would bubble to the surface, coating the exposed fat and muscle. It became increasingly difficult for Dean to keep his composure during these breaks, especially with Cas’s jerking movements and pitiful moans. “I know, Cas, I know, I know it hurts, it’s gonna be over soon, okay, you got this,” Dean would mutter, more for himself than Cas. He wasn’t sure if Cas even heard.

After one particularly bad puncture, Cas let out a shriek that had Dean and Lily throwing their hands over their already covered ears. Cas snaked all of his heads over then and wrenched four trees wholesale out of the ground, one two three four, a tree for each clenched jaw. Dean had the sudden strong desire to just gather Cas in his arms, not his vessel, but the real Cas, talons and fangs and all. To hold a scaled down version of the feathered Cas to his chest, run a hand over his heads and down his wings, and just tell him it was all gonna be okay. That he was gonna get better. That he was gonna fly again one day.

But Cas was Godzilla-sized, not dog-sized, and he apparently could rip entire trees out of the ground when he was in pain. So all Dean could do was try to get this whole thing over with as fast as possible.

They worked long after the sun had sunk behind the sky, courtesy of Cas’s conveniently glow-in-the-dark plumage. If he had looked badass during the day, he turned out to be absolutely breathtaking at night.

Dean loved the word “awesome”. Even he had to admit that he used it a lot. But he’d always thought it sounded weird when religious texts used it the way they did, to describe something amazing, something that filled people with wonder.

But it was the only word he knew that could possibly capture the image of a seraph against the night sky.

That night, as he lay in bed, his eyes tightly closed, he could still see the image of his seraph, a fiery streak of emerald, scarlet and golden flames clawing into the night sky. Amazing. Impossible.

Awesome.

Dean rolled over, opening his eyes and studying the angelic sword that hung in the center of his wall, in a place of honor among his favorite blades and guns. He moved his hand slightly to feel for the angel blade he kept under his pillow. His palm met the cool surface of Cas’s talon, and he felt a strange sensation wash over him. It took him a long time to place it; it wasn’t a sensation he felt very often. He felt…

Safe.

He had always wondered how Lilith could have been so devoted to Lucifer that she gave her own life so that he could be free from the Cage. How she could have spent all those years, twisting her soul, amassing an army and devising a millenia-long game just to break him out. But now, knowing that she was Bonded to him, knowing that he was her angel, he thought he understood. Because every plan or dream that Dean had ever had was now focused into one single goal.

Cas would fly again.

The mighty Quetzalcoatl would take to the air again one day. The greatest flyer in Heaven was not meant to be grounded, and he wouldn’t be for much longer if Dean had anything to say about it. Even if it took the rest of his life.

And not even Heaven could stop a Winchester with a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, I have to admit I got the alebrije idea from Coco. I knew what they were beforehand from living in Tucson for a while (the street fairs there are awesome) and I adored Coco's interpretation of what they really were. It makes sense given the backstory behind the creation of the art style, so I ran with it:)
> 
> This is also just a breather chapter, because it was sort of necessary to set up some things and to keep the whole "healing Cas" thing rolling. As was probably obvious from this chapter, I'm a programmer, not a doctor, so please excuse the large amounts of artistic license regarding the study of medicine. I'm just gonna continue to handwave my ignorance with "angels are a totally different species" lol.
> 
> Also in this chapter I accidentally made probably another few chapters of plot necessary--I promise I'm not just sending the plot through side quests, it's just as I write the plot seems to start writing itself:) I hope y'all can stick with me through a long plot! I promise I'm not ramble-writing this fic just to hear myself talk:)
> 
> Thanks again for sticking with me and for all your lovely comments!


	16. Going Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam, Dean, Cas, and Lily plan a visit to Cas's home.

Sam was sitting on the couch, squeezed in next to Jalen to watch him play  _ Fortnite _ on his laptop.

“You ever played this before?” Sam said, trying to make conversation.

Jalen nodded. “I had a friend from school in my first home that would let me play it on his mom’s computer.”

Sam nodded, not really knowing what to say next. “You want some fruit salad? I was gonna go make some for myself.”

“Seriously, Sam? Get the kid some chips or something. Actually, I think I have some Oreos in the pantry.”

Sam twisted around in his seat to look at Dean, who was walking down the entry staircase with Cas and Lily on his heels. “Dean, he needs to have something other than junk food.”

“I like Oreos,” Jalen piped up.

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hands. He supposed the kid deserved to be spoiled a little bit. But the sooner they got him into a house with real parents that actually cared about giving him a nutritious diet, the better. “Okay. But only two. Then we’re gonna get some real food in you.”

“I’ll start some omelets,” Lily said. “Jalen, what do you like in your omelets?”

“Mushrooms?” Jalen asked,  _ Fortnite _ completely forgotten as he pushed himself off the sofa. “And bell peppers.”

Dean looked at him askanse. “Seriously? Sam, I think I found mini-you.”

“You’ve got that in the bunker?” Lily asked.

“Yeah, we do. I keep the vegetables stocked under Dean’s nose,” Sam said.

Lily took Jalen’s hand and led him towards the kitchen. When they had rounded the corner, Sam walked up to Cas. “How you feeling?”

“Fine,” Cas said wearily, but his entire appearance belied his answer. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and he looked pretty pale. Which, considering that this body wasn’t really even him, was saying something.

“Why don’t you help Lily with the omelets,” Dean said to Cas. “Sam and I will catch up.”

“I don’t know how to make omelets. I doubt I’d be of much help.”

“Well, how ‘bout you go learn. Good skill to have.”

Cas nodded and followed Lily and Jalen into the kitchen.

“You know he’ll probably still be able to hear us,” Sam muttered, stepping in towards his brother.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Dean responded. “Just wanna feel like he’s not.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, so how is he? He sort of looked like crap.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve been giving him stitches for two straight days with no anesthetic. Dude’s a trooper.”

Sam sucked in his breath. “Damn.”

“Yeah. Hey, so, Lily told me that I probably have a good enough handle on it to teach you how to do it.”

“Who’s gonna stay here with Jalen? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to help, but--”

“Lily says she can stay here.”

“Uh…” Sam glanced around, then lowered his voice. “You trust her with the kid?”

“You don’t trust her around Jalen but you trust her around Cas?”

“Yeah, but you’re there. I figured it would be alright with you keeping an eye on the situation.”

“Look, she was out for Cas’s blood because he was involved in her daughter’s murder.  _ And _ her angel’s,” Dean said, his expression dark. “And hey, guess what? She gave that up almost immediately, when she understood what had happened.  _ Immediately _ . I mean, if someone was involved in your murder, or Cas’s murder, I sure as hell wouldn’t be helping patch them up, I can tell you that.”

“Okay, so what are you saying?”

“What I’m  _ saying _ is, she’s not a bad person. Not naturally. She wouldn’t do anything to Jalen. Actually--” and here Dean lowered his voice to match Sam’s, “I think she’s lonely.”

“What?”

“You know she reads to Jalen at night?”

“No. She does?”

“Yeah. She’s halfway through the first  _ Harry Potter _ book with him. I see them up in his room, when I’m brushing my teeth and stuff.”

“You brush your teeth? Could’ve fooled me.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“No, seriously though, that’s cool. Bet he hasn’t had someone read to him for a long time.”

“If at all,” Dean said, his eyes drifting over to the kitchen where Lily was attempting to teach Cas how to flip an omelet. She walked past Jalen as she went to grab the spatula, placing a hand affectionately on his shoulder as she did so.

“Okay,” Sam said. “Okay, sure. I was getting tired of  _ Fortnite _ anyway. Anything else I should know about?”

“Yeah. Um...we might have to sneak into Heaven.”

Sam stared at him for a long two seconds. “ _ What _ ?”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, turns out we’re gonna need some medical supplies that they only have in Heaven. Including a celestial’s skin for grafting over that giant gaping hole in his side.”

Sam ran his hands through his hair. This was just getting better and better. “We’re not--we’re not gonna have to kill an angel, are we?”

“Well, maybe, but not for the skin. Apparently there are celestial animals and we need to use one of those.”

“Celestial--you know what, okay. We need to sit down one of these days and grill him on all the stuff about his homeland he’s been holding out on us.”

“No shit.”

“What about my homeland?” Cas said from the doorway to the kitchen.

Sam nearly jumped. “Uh--we need to talk about some new developments. With your treatment. In fact, I think all of us should have a talk after Jalen goes to bed.”

“Why after I go to bed?” Jalen said, walking under the arm that Cas had propped on the doorframe. Sam noted that Jalen’s fists were clenched around far more than two Oreos, and the crumbs that adorned his mouth said that that wasn’t even all of them.

“Because, it’s going to be a boring adult conversation,” Lily said, coming up behind them. “Now get in here, food is ready.”

* * *

That night, Cas stood outside the door to Jalen’s room until Lily tiptoed out of it, closing the door gently behind her.

“Hello, Lily.”

Lily gave a quiet shriek that she covered with a cough. She turned around, her expression exasperated. “And just how long have you been standing here?”

“Since the children nearly got strangled by the plant.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “So, basically since I started? Well, I’m gonna have to read that chapter over to him, he fell asleep in the middle of it. Not sure how you can fall asleep at the climax of the book, but he managed it.”

“I sent him to sleep.”

Lily frowned. “Why?”

“Isn’t that why you read to him? To facilitate his transition into a state of unconsciousness?”

“Not...entirely.” Lily shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand; you haven’t had kids.”

A few responses came to Cas’s mind then, chief among them being to ask about their deal, that she would change that state of affairs given he help her locate and exact revenge on Ishim. But something about her demeanor told him that this was not the time. Instead, he said, “The Winchesters are waiting for us in the map room.”

Lily began to walk down the stairs. “Well, let’s get on with it then.”

Sam and Dean were talking quietly when Cas and Lily entered the map room, but immediately ceased upon their arrival. “So,” Dean said, “Lily and I had a discussion yesterday, about uh, the wound in Cas’s side.”

Cas sat down at the table, feeling awkward. It was still unnerving, having Dean know so much about his injuries, about his health. To see the outcome of all of Cas’s decisions, mostly bad, written out on his body. No, not unnerving...shameful.

“That particular injury is going to require a skin graft,” Lily said. “And it’s too much to just take from somewhere else on Cas’s body. We’re going to have to find a donor.”

“A donor, like another angel, right?” Sam said.

“No, a celestial animal.”

“Celestial animal?”

And then Lily launched into explaining all about Heaven’s wildlife--stars, nebulae, black holes, the like. Cas watched as Sam’s eyebrows climbed higher into his hairline. Clearly he had been unaware of the rich environment that Heaven boasted.

“So, we have to--catch a nebula, or something?” Sam asked, running a hand through his hair.

“Well, they look different on the other side,” Lily said. “You’re just seeing impressions of them here. Sort of like seraphim simply look like strands of bright light here, but, as you now know, that’s not what they really look like in their home dimension.”

“You know, we’ve been to Heaven before,” Sam said then, “and we never saw anything like what you’re describing.”

“As I was explaining to Dean, you’ve only been in the lab where all the souls of expired mortals are held, and even then only really in the petri dishes. I’m talking about walking out of the lab, into the angel’s world.”

Cas felt his Grace squirm within him at this. Sam and Dean--go to Heaven? The  _ real  _ Heaven? Cas had been there recently. He had tried to make his visits brief, ever since the end of the war. Even in those rare times when he wasn’t being hunted down. Because--

It was a wasteland now.

He realized after a while that he was missing the discussion, and that Sam, Dean, and Lily were deep in conversation over the logistics of such an operation. “No,” Cas butt in.

His voice had been quiet, soft, and it seemed at first that they hadn’t heard him.

But Dean turned to him, and held up a hand to the others. “What, Cas?”

“No,” Cas said, his voice stronger this time, “we can’t go to Heaven.”

“And just why the Hell not?”

“Because…” Cas searched quickly for a suitable answer. “Because it simply isn’t worth the risk.”

“Not worth the--” Dean leaned over the table towards Cas. “Now you listen here. You are  _ always _ worth the risk, Cas.  _ Always _ .”

Cas looked away, because he knew that any trip to Heaven would dispel that notion immediately from Dean’s mind. “My comfort is not worth your lives.”

“Comfort? Dude, maybe you haven’t noticed this yet, because you never seem to let this shit slow you down, but you have a  _ gaping fucking hole  _ in your side. I can see your goddamn ribs. I’d say that’s a little more than comfort.”

Lily jumped in then, her gaze on her hands which were folded primly on the table. “This isn’t about you, Cas. It’s about saving a whole lot of people from Cipactli.”

“I’m not the only seraph out there capable of taking on Cipactli. And I’m certainly not the one who deserves it the most.”

“Maybe that’s true. But you  _ are _ the only one that’s willing. You’re our ace in the hole, Castiel. We need a seraph at full power.”

Ah. So he was to be their tool. No longer useful to the Lord, or even to Heaven, perhaps he could still be of some use to the Winchesters. Well, if that were the case…

“Well, we know where the playground is,” Castiel said with a sigh. “That’s probably our best method of entry still.”

Lily nodded. Sam looked down at the table and drummed his fingers. Dean, though, was looking at Cas with an odd expression--like something halfway between surprise and disappointment. Cas didn’t understand--wasn’t this what he had wanted?

“Alright,” Sam said, breaking the silence. “Should we start packing then?”

“You won’t need anything but your angel blades, and your sword, Dean,” Lily said.

“Uh, I value Cas’s contributions to our armory a lot, but uh, I think we might need a little more than a few blades when sneaking into  _ actual Heaven _ ,” Dean said.

“Allow me to rephrase that,” said Lily, shaking her head. “You won’t  _ be able _ to bring in anything but those blades. Not even a change of clothes. When they say, ‘you can’t take it with you’, they’re not lying. The moment you cross the threshold of the lab you will be leaving the material world behind and entering the spiritual one. Only that which originates in the spiritual world can enter it.”

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. “What the Hell are we getting ourselves into?”

“So, let’s talk strategy,” Dean said, leaning over the table towards Lily. “What do Sam and I do when we first get in there? How do we get out of the lab?”

“Sam and you?” Lily cocked an eyebrow. “You might have forgotten, but you have a responsibility now. Someone needs to stay here with Jalen.”

“Well, what about you?”

“You hardly know Heaven. You need someone who is familiar with the land. I was there dozens of times with Akobel.”

“What about Jody? She could take care of him for a few days.”

“Absolutely not. The poor child’s been moved all over the place in the last few weeks, not to mention he’s seen two people smote. He’s not going off to live with someone he doesn’t know just to be dragged back here.”

“What if I go?” Cas interjected again.

“What?” Lily asked, turning to him.

“What if I go?” Cas repeated. “After all, I’m pretty sure I know Heaven a little better than you do, Ms. Sunder. It is, after all, my home.”

“Oh, can it, Cas,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “There is no way in Hell you are coming along.”

“And why not?”

“Do I have to say it again? You have a gaping fucking hole in your side. What if Cas takes care of the kid?”

“Because I have no idea what is required for the care of a human fledgling--child, I mean. And, while I appreciate your strength and skill in combat, Dean, Sam, even at my weakest I could still crush you. Right now, if I so desired. And every angel in Heaven could do the same. You will be two ants trying to steal food at a picnic. You will need my size, if nothing else.”

“Yeah, well, ants are so small it’s hard to stomp on them, right?” Dean said. “You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.  _ And _ you’re a wanted man.”

“Do you have any idea the time it would take for you to traverse the distance between the cluster of personal Heavens and the nearest healing center? It would take decades, perhaps centuries! Even without flight, I would cut the time to a paltry fraction of that.”

“He’s right,” Lily said, rubbing her temples. “Every other time I’ve been, it was with Akobel. I didn’t account for that.”

“Besides,” Cas said, “I think it would be a good opportunity for Lily to spend time alone with Jalen, unfettered by responsibilities to my continued recovery. To prepare for when you take him in as your own.”

“Take him in as my--” Lily turned to Cas, her jaw dropping. Dean snorted in laughter.

“I assumed that was your wish. I’ve been studying your interactions with the child; it is not unlike the interactions between any other mammalian mother and her offspring. Or a seraph and its fledgeling, for that matter.”

For once, Lily seemed at a complete loss for words. She looked then to Dean, but Dean simply raised his hands. “Don’t look at me,” he said.

Cas found her reaction bemusing; what had been strange about what he had said? Then he realized. “It has just occurred to me that I may have interpreted their actions towards each other incorrectly.”

Sam chuckled. “No, I think you hit the nail on the head, Cas. You’re just the only one who could have gotten away with saying it. We’ll give you a pass, cuz you’re still a foreigner.”

“Oh.” Cas leaned in Sam’s direction then, kitty-corner to himself, and whispered loud enough for Sam to hear, “Was that a ‘faux pas’?”

Dean burst out laughing at this, and Lily rolled her eyes. “It’s cool, Cas,” Dean said, wiping tears from his eyes, “I think she needed someone to say it.”

“Oh, but...I didn’t think,” Cas said, straightening up again. “I suppose you couldn’t carry on with your revenge mission against Ishim. So I suppose Jalen will have to be cared for by someone else.”

The whole table went silent then. Cas was just starting to worry that he had made another social error when Lily said, quietly, “I’m starting to realize that there are some things that are more important than revenge.” She looked up at Dean and Sam. “Do you think Jalen would like New Orleans? Of course, we’d stay here until the threat of Cipactli has passed.”

“Uh…” Dean looked a little blindsided by the question, but Sam fortunately stepped in.

“Why don’t you ask him, Lily? While we’re in Heaven?”

Lily nodded. “I think I will.” She sighed, then looked around the table. “Well, let’s talk shop. How are we sneaking you in there, first off?”

The rest of the night passed as they planned the Winchester’s first real visit to Cas’s home.

* * *

The next morning found Cas still sitting at the table in the map room, studying the meticulous depiction of the Earth’s features there. It was truly amazing, what humans had managed to discover of the Earth’s form even before they had had the benefit of an angel’s-eye view. Cas remembered watching the great single continent that had once marked the planet’s surface break apart over the course of millions of years...every time he had looked at it it was a little different, not different enough for a human to notice, but for an angel...Cas traced the Atlantic coasts of the South American and African continents with one of his vessel’s fingers, remembering when they had been joined along a fault line. He wondered if he would ever see this image again, in real life. If he would ever again have what he now knew was the privilege of seeing the planet’s majesty from on high.

After their discussion regarding entering Heaven had finished, and the humans had gone off to log their required hours of unconsciousness in order to maintain their functionality, Cas had remained and stewed over what was to come. The Winchesters, entering Heaven. For once, they would be the ones visiting his world, they would be the foreigners, confused and clinging to their native guide as he did to them. Cas had never entertained fantasies of his human visiting Heaven--considering his almost immediate rebellion against the Host, he had discarded any such plans early on. But even if he had, it would never have been like this. The Heaven that Dean would be visiting was not Castiel’s home. It was his greatest mistake.

Had they even cleaned up all the bodies yet? While Castiel had been running around Earth and Purgatory, at various times insane or in poverty, had the Host amassed enough celestial-power to give the dead proper rites? To sweep away the ashes of the wings that marked that an angel’s life had been extinguished for Eternity? He doubted it. The death toll was simply too high…

And what would his human think of him then? Perhaps he would hardly care. After all, he had made it quite clear over the past several years that, to him, non-human life did not hold nearly the same value as human life did. Perhaps upon seeing the carnage, he would still weigh Cas’s betrayal of him and his murder of several dozen humans as a greater sin than the slaughter of thousands of angels.

Then again, perhaps not. Because the truth of the matter was, Dean’s newfound appreciation of Cas was based on lies. Because it wasn’t the real Cas that Dean cared for. That Dean was helping to heal. That Dean was learning Enochian for. No, it wasn’t the real Cas. Because there were too many things that Dean didn’t know. That Cas hadn’t had the courage to tell him.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Sam walked through the map room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He was clearly on the way to the kitchen, because he didn’t even pause to look around him en route. Cas moved slightly to follow him, and Sam whipped around, grabbing at the band of his sweatpants for a gun that wasn’t there. Upon seeing Cas, he relaxed.

“You’re quiet,” Sam said, running a hand through his hair. “You, uh, been down here all night?”

“Yes.”

Sam nodded. “You want some breakfast?”

“I suppose I should,” Cas said, trailing Sam into the kitchen.

“Oatmeal good for you?”

“Yes, thank you,” Cas said. He wasn’t entirely sure what oatmeal was, but he wasn’t going to be finicky. It all tasted like molecules anyway.

Sam took out a pot and began to heat some water. “So, you excited?”

Cas frowned. “For what?”

“Visiting Heaven. Been a while since you’ve been home, right?”

Cas sighed. “It doesn’t really feel like home to me anymore.”

“Because, uh, you’re not really welcomed there anymore?” Sam said sympathetically.

Cas shrugged. Dean saved him from a response by choosing that moment to walk into the kitchen with Jalen at his heels. “Hey, what’s for breakfast?” he asked, plopping down at the table and drumming his fingers on the surface.

“Oatmeal,” Sam said with a smirk.

Dean rolled his eyes and got up. “Okay, where are those fruit loops,” he muttered.

Sam placed two bowls of oatmeal on the table, one for him and one, presumably, for Cas. Cas took a tentative bite of the semi-liquid concoction and attempted, quite unsuccessfully, to put thoughts of Heaven from his mind.

* * *

Later that morning, Dean slung his duffel into the Impala trunk. Sure, they couldn’t take it with them, but the drive was over fifteen hours...it would be nice to have a change of clothes. And maybe they could only use angel blades when they got past the threshold, but he doubted they would be able to just walk right in.

He turned around when he heard footsteps in the hallway. “Hey Sam, do you know where my--” But it wasn’t Sam. It was Lily. And she was holding something out to him.

“Here,” she said. “Give this to Castiel. It will allow him to pray to me in addition to his ability to pick up my prayers. That way we’ll still have a line of communication, if you have any questions or need any help.”

Dean accepted the object, which turned out to be some sort of red crystal, except it also seemed pliable. “The hell is this?” he asked, tossing it from hand to hand.

“The eardrum of an angel, soaked in my blood.”

Dean nearly dropped it, catching it just in time and placing it carefully in one of the plastic bags bunched in the back of his trunk. “Uh...one of Akobel’s?”

“No,” Lily said shortly. Dean didn’t ask for elaboration.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Dean said, “So, uh, thanks for convincing Cas last night. On the whole trip to Heaven thing.”

Lily nodded. “I’m starting to get the impression that he is reluctant to allow anyone to put themselves at risk on his behalf. Thought maybe a reminder of the bigger picture would speed things along.”

Dean sheathed one of his angel blades and placed it in the trunk. “Well, you read him right. Pretty sure the guy’s had a death wish since the civil war.”

Lily looked thoughtfully at the blade. “He’s not the Castiel I remember.”

Dean looked back at her. “From what I understand, you two didn’t uh, really meet each other personally.”

Lily sighed. “That’s true. I only really knew Ishim. That was enough.”

Dean didn’t really know how to respond to that, so he was grateful that Sam, Cas, and Jalen entered the garage at that moment. Sam threw his duffel in next to Dean’s. “We ready to go?”

“Think so. You ready, Cas?”

Cas just looked glumly at Dean.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Alright Jalen, you be good for Miss Lily, okay? She’ll be taking care of you while we’re gone.”

“I know. We’re gonna start the second  _ Harry Potter _ book before you come back,” Jalen said, smiling up at Lily.

Lily rested a hand on his shoulder, returning the smile. Then she looked up at Sam, Dean, and Castiel. “You boys try not to get into too much trouble without me watching over you.”

“Pretty sure getting in trouble’s all we know how to do,” Dean said, plopping into the driver’s seat. Throwing the Impala into gear, he eased out of the driveway, waving at Jalen and Lily as he did so. Then he plopped a cassette tape into the player. When Sam saw the title, he rolled his eyes.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Dean chuckled sadistically as “Stairway to Heaven” came blasting out of the speakers. Banging his head in time with the music, he looked out the window to see Lily full-on laughing. Jalen was laughing, too, although it was pretty clear the kid had no idea what he was supposed to be laughing about.

With the open road stretched out before them and home safely waiting for them, Dean almost started believing it would all work out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the wait! This week has been hectic for me--my canine companion got her puppy garden out, aaaaaaand then we found out she has heartworms. So. Not fun. I was a little distracted.
> 
> Again, just a set up chapter. The next one is definitely gonna be plotty, so hold on to your seraph cuz we're in for a wild ride! Thanks for sticking with me and all your kind comments:)


	17. In a Mirror, Darkly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will visit the playground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since most of the angels in Supernatural have been named after Biblical figures, I have kept with that trend. "Salome" (SA-la-mei) is the daughter of King Herod, and Jafeth (ja-FETH) is Noah's son. But this note at the beginning cuz I didn't want anyone to think I'd named an angel after salami.

The inside of the Impala was silent as Dean took the exit ramp towards Akron, Ohio’s Market Street (there was always one in every city, wasn’t there?). The sun was beginning to sink behind the numerous hills dotting the area, but Dean knew the silence was born of tension rather than exhaustion. Getting in a tangle with angels was always nerve-wracking; getting in a tangle with them on their turf was even more so. And knowing what was behind their vessels now, the prospect of trying to take one down was even less appealing.

The city was small enough that downtown gave way to large upper-middle class homes in a matter of minutes, and Dean found himself wishing that the place was just a little more spread out. Within ten minutes, they were passing the playground.  _ The  _ playground. The entrance to paradise. Dean pulled past it, out of sight, and found a parking spot just around the corner. He surveyed the little houses lined along the cramped street as he did so, with their little lights and their little TVs and their little families all sitting around their tables for dinner. If only these people knew what their innocent little playground led to…

Dean killed the engine and twisted around to look at both Sam and Dean. “You ready?”

Sam nodded and opened the door. Cas sighed.

“Hey,” Dean said, holding Cas’s morose gaze. “Sam and I are gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine. We’re all gonna be fine. Got it?”

Cas looked away. “Got it.” But he didn’t look like he’d gotten it. If anything, he looked even more upset.

“Well, let’s go take a trip to your hometown, huh? You’ll need to show us all your old haunts.” Dean opened the door. Before he closed it, he added, “I mean, not really, we’ll probably be running for our lives the entire time, but hey. Maybe some other time.”

The three of them walked purposefully towards the playground (well, Dean and Sam did--Cas sort of trailed behind them reluctantly). They had decided that there was no Earthly way they would be able to sneak up on whatever poor sod had landed gate detail, so they might as well take refuge in audacity. They had briefly toyed with the idea of hiding Cas from sight until the last second because of his reputation in Heaven, but it wasn’t like any of them were exactly welcome there and Sam and Dean were almost as recognizable to the Heavenly public as Cas was (although, according to Cas, most angels had difficulty telling humans apart).

As they approached, Dean scanned the main structure of the playground for the sentinels that would surely be there. He spotted a young woman on a bench, knitting. Her eyes were not on her project, however; they were surveying the playground with a watchful eye.

“Think that’s the guard?” Sam asked, gesturing with his blade towards the woman.

Dean shook his head and hitched his chin towards the playground. “She’s got a kid.”

Sam glanced toward the playground, where a child of about five was climbing onto the structure and making her way towards the slide. She stopped and stared at Sam, Dean, and Cas as they walked towards the sandbox.

The woman stood up at their approach. Dean wondered if he had misread the situation, but then realized that seeing three grown men armed with blades without a child entering a playground would be enough to worry any mother. Dean waved to her. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re, uh, filming something. For a college project.”

Sam rolled his eyes and muttered, “Don’t you think we look a little old for college kids?”

“C’mon, nontraditional students,” Dean whispered back.

The woman didn’t sit down, though. Instead, she frowned and tilted her head. “You look familiar,” she stated matter-of-factly.

Dean froze. So, she was an angel. He glanced at the kid on the structure, whose gaze was still fixed on them. Probably an angel, too. Dean attempted to hide his angel blade discreetly.

No such luck. The angel at the bench snapped her vessel’s eyes to the blade. “Where did you get that?”

Ah, fuck it. He pulled the blade back out and poised for attack. He saw Sam do the same out of the corner of his eye.

A small voice behind him called out something in a familiar-sounding language. Enochian. Dean glanced around just long enough to see the angel possessing the little girl pointing at Castiel.

“Castiel? Is that you?” the angel by the bench asked, approaching the group slowly.

Dean and Sam raised their blades in tandem. “You move a muscle and that bench is gonna have a permanent wing pattern on it.”

The angel stopped and pulled an amused expression. Dean wondered how long it had practiced that. “Really. We may have lost our ability to fly, but we are still celestial beings. Just how do you propose to end us?”

“We’ve done it before,” Dean growled.

“It’s true,” Castiel said. “They have.”

The angel turned her attention once again to Castiel. “Hello there, Castiel. I almost didn’t recognize you there, what with the missing face and all that. It’s been a while.”

Castiel lowered his weapon slightly. “Salome?”

Salome nodded.

“Who the hell is this?” Dean asked, waving his blade at “Salome”.

“An old…well…”

“A friend of a friend,” Salome said. “We knew each other through Balthazar. That is, until his untimely death.” She gave a pointed look to Cas.

“Hey, look, you can’t lay every death during the civil war at Cas’s feet,” Dean said exasperatedly. He knew it was pointless, but he was starting to get annoyed at the angels’ attitude about Cas’s part in the war. Sure, he did some dumb shit, but… “You guys  _ were _ trying to destroy Earth. He did what he had to,” he finished lamely.

“Dean…” Cas muttered exasperatedly.

“No, seriously, I’m getting sick of this shit. You guys try to destroy your dad’s Creation,  _ twice _ , and you throw a tantrum when Cas tries to put a stop to that nonsense. Then you lay the whole getting locked out of Heaven thing at Cas’s feet, when it was really Metatron’s fault! Oh, and let’s not forget--”

“No, no, let’s forget it, Dean,” Cas said nervously as Salome cocked an eyebrow.

“ _ I  _ tried to destroy Father’s Creation? I will have you know that I fought alongside Castiel during the war. I  _ believed _ in his cause!” Salome breathed sharply through her vessel’s nose as she visibly tried to reign her temper in. When she spoke again, her voice was steely. “I can see that there are some things that Cas hasn’t quite made you aware of yet. Does the Righteous Man know how Castiel treats his comrades in arms? Next time you have the opportunity, Dean, ask your seraph how Balthazar fell.”

The angel at the slide called something out again abruptly. Salome raised a warning hand and barked, “Stop that! Back there. You, with the mane.”

Shit. She was talking about Sam, wasn’t she. He was probably trying to draw the sigil out in the sand while she was distracted.

A rustling that Dean hadn’t even noticed behind him stopped abruptly. Sam had apparently frozen.

Salome lowered her vessel’s hand. “Why do you want entry into Heaven, Castiel? Or, let me put it another way: why do you think you deserve entry into Heaven, after the state you left it in?”

“We’re trying to take care of an--” Dean began, but Salome cut him off.

“The question was directed at Castiel, not you, mud monkey.”

Dean paused and grit his teeth in anger, but let Castiel answer.

“I don’t think I deserve to return to Heaven. But what one deserves and what one  _ must do _ are often very different things.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I need to finish a job I started years ago, while I was still a member of the Host, and I...I need supplies,” Castiel finished awkwardly.

Salome passed a hand over her vessel’s face. “I cannot believe this.” She imitated a sigh. “Sometimes I simply can’t believe you, Castiel. After all the mistakes you’ve made, and you are still setting out on some one-winged mission? Just how many lives can you ruin before you realize that you should just. Stop.”

“I--this mission was not my idea.”

“Oh. Wonderful. And just who did you mistakenly place your trust in this time?”

“The Righteous Man and his brother.”

Salome groaned. “Of course. Your human and his brother. Or shall I say your owners? You do realize that Bonds  _ predated _ human domestication of animals, right? That you’re not their pet?” She made a noise of disgust. “It’s absolutely shameful.”

The little girl spoke again, this time in English. “What supplies?”

“What?” Dean said, turning slightly to glance at her.

“I said, what supplies? What supplies do you need from Heaven?”

No one spoke for a few moments. Then Cas said, awkwardly, “Medical supplies.”

The silence continued after that, and Dean cringed inwardly. Yeah, that was not gonna go over well.

He was right. “Medical supplies?” Salome repeated slowly. “For...yourself?”

“I--”

“You slaughtered Heaven’s entire Healing Force and you are looking for medical supplies... _ for yourself?! _ ” Salome shook her head. “The gall. The entitlement!”

“I’m not doing this for me!” Cas began to plead, but Salome was on a roll.

“Because of you, we are all flightless. Because of you, our Healers are dead. Because of you, we no longer have the knowledge to reverse Heaven’s suppression of our reproduction and we are on the verge of  _ extinction _ . And you think to steal from the small inventory of medical supplies we have left?” Salome straightened and brandished her blade once more. “If only you had died during the extraction of the Righteous Man from the fires of Perdition. You would have perished a legend, and no one would have had the chance to discover what a disgusting, selfish fool the Hero of the First Seal truly was.” She drew her arm back to toss the blade at Cas.

Dean acted on instinct. Switching his blade to his other hand, he drew his angelic sword from its sheath and jumped in front of Cas. The flying blade clashed against the silver of Cas’s talon and bounced back at an angle, flopping harmlessly into the grass on the border of the playground. Dean stared in shock at the sword for a moment; never in a million years would he have expected to successfully parry that throw. Even given his admittedly good skill with a blade, he would have been no match against the reflexes of an angel.

But then again, this was his angel’s talon. And it was meant to be wielded by him and him alone.

Dean threw himself back into the fight against Salome with renewed confidence. Sam took on the child, while Cas took up drawing the sigil where Sam had left off. Dean was in the zone, parrying blow after blow, slowly, miraculously driving Salome back. It was as if the sword knew the movement he intended before even his own muscles had received the message, as if it was in tune with his very thoughts. Soon the angel was stepping back off of the wood chips into the grass; now she was up against the bench. Her vessel’s knees bent as she fell back on to it, frantically defending herself against Dean’s blows--

Suddenly Dean was thrown all the way to the other side of the playground, the wood chips grinding into his back, the wind knocked out of his chest. As he struggled for air, his first thought was that Salome somehow had more power than he had seen in an angel since the Fall. But then he realized.

_ Her tail. She nailed me with her fucking tail! _

And then it came crashing back down on him that he wasn’t fighting a mother with a penchant for knitting--he was fighting a dragon the size of a skyscraper. Literally, it came crashing down on him. Though invisible, the tail that had thrown him a few dozen yards was now pinning him down. He struggled to free himself, struggled for breath, but it was useless.

Salome strode purposefully across the playground and kneeled down at his side. He felt the cool of her blade against his throat. She twisted around to call out to Castiel. “Castiel, are you watching? Wouldn’t want you to miss this.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Castiel freeze. He was still crouched in the sandbox, his blade poised in the sand, in the middle of etching out the sigil that would grant them access. His eyes were glued to the scene before him, his face a rictus of horror.

“Let him go or your friend’s dead!” Sam shouted back. Dean twisted as much as he could to glance at Sam, who was holding the small child at knifepoint.

Salome stiffened for a fraction of a second, then relaxed. “Really, Samuel Winchester? You would take the life of little Noora?”

Sam frowned, but did not release the angel. “Noora. That your name?” he demanded of the girl.

“No, that’s the name of her vessel. Five years old. The first of her family to be born on American soil, after her family fled Syria. So grateful were they for God’s mercy that neither mother nor daughter hesitated when offered the great honor of vesselhood. Although I’m sure neither of them would have expected for it to end this way. After all they’ve been through…” Salome said, her voice mocking.

Sam’s breaths came heavily. Dean could see the choice warring within him.

“Salome…” Cas’s voice said slowly. “You have no idea the choices that Sam has had to make. You think he would hesitate to end a vessel’s life if it stood in the way of the end goal? He threw himself into the Cage to end the Apocalypse. You have no idea what he would do, Salome. Would you really be willing to gamble the life of one of the few members of our species left?”

Salome turned on him, her vessel’s face twisted in fury. Her voice was low and shaking in anger. “Would you, Castiel?”

Even from here, Dean could see the pain in Cas’s face. “Haven’t I already?”

Salome hesitated for a few moments, then spat out, “Fine. Finish your sigil, Castiel. The human and I will walk towards the portal with our hostages, and we will let them go at the same time. Jafeth and I will let you pass. You won’t get far anyways.”

Castiel glanced at Sam. Sam nodded.

The playground was silent as Castiel hurriedly finished the sigil. He etched the last marking with a flourish and tossed the stick away, then stood up to meet Salome’s gaze. “Alright.”

“Very well,” Salome said. She hauled Dean roughly to his feet and pulled him in front of her, pointing her blade at his throat. Dean looked glumly over at his sword, which lay glinting in the grass several yards away. He was never going to get that back.

Sam began walking slowly towards the portal, Jafeth in tow. Salome matched his every move, yanking Dean along as she did so. When they came up on the sand box, they both stopped.

“On the count of three,” Sam said. Dean heard Salome make a sound of derision behind him. “One, two…”

Dean was shocked that Salome let him get to three, but she did. On three, she pushed him roughly to the ground. Sam pushed Jafeth away from himself, too. Cas said a word in Enochian, and the markings in the sand began to glow. Dean scrambled to his feet, and, without thinking, jumped into the sandbox.

It had been a long time since he’d visited Heaven, and that time it had been the natural way (he’d just been shot). That time, it had felt so very much like the peace that comes with sleep; except, instead of slipping into a reality less real than the one he had just been in, he had awoken to a world that felt  _ more _ real. This time, however, he felt an overwhelming sense of discombobulation. He felt a tingling not unlike the sensation of a foot falling asleep, except it was across his entire body. After several moments he realized in horror that he could no longer feel his body at all, could not operate his legs, was no longer seeing through his eyes. He tried to cry out, but he could not feel his mouth. Sam! Where was he? Where was Castiel?

Gradually he realized that, although he could not see, hear, feel, taste, or smell, he nevertheless was somehow experiencing...something. White. It was white. Dean didn’t know how he knew it was white, because he could not see it.

_ What the fuck? _

**WHAT DO YOU MEAN?**

Dean would have spun around to see who had spoken if he could, but he couldn’t even locate his body, much less move. And on top of that, he didn’t even seem to be hearing a voice. It was more like...knowledge dumped directly into his head.

But there was something familiar about it…

_ Cas? _

**YES, DEAN?**

Okay. That made him feel a little better. But that still didn’t answer why he couldn’t feel his body, or why he couldn’t see but could still tell that they were surrounded by white, pristine walls.

**ONLY THAT WHICH ORIGINATED FROM HEAVEN CAN RESIDE IN HEAVEN. YOUR SOUL WAS SEPARATED FROM YOU BODY THE MOMENT YOU EXITED EARTH.**

Oh, Dean did not like the sound of that at all. Because if his body wasn’t here, that meant--

**DON’T WORRY, I HAVE SAM’S AND YOUR BODIES IN SAFE-KEEPING. I WILL GUARD THEM FROM THE HEAVENLY ELEMENTS AS I DO JIMMY’S BODY WHEN I RETURN TO HEAVEN.**

Where--oh. The image of Jimmy popping out of Castiel’s mouth to serve as translator every time they were in the meadow jumped to the forefront of Dean’s mind. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that either, but it was a hell of a lot better than lying in the sandbox for Salome and Jafeth to do with as they pleased.

That reminded Dean: he’d left his sword in the grass by the playground. He felt a surprising pang of loss at this: it had barely seen battle before it had fallen.  _ It’s just a symbol _ , Dean tried to tell himself.  _ Just a symbol of Cas’s and my Bond.  _ After all, Cas was still here. And he’d like to keep it that way. Besides, there were more where that came from.

**OH, DON’T WORRY, DEAN. I BROUGHT THAT ALONG, TOO. SCOOPED IT UP WITH MY TAIL IN THE SCUFFLE. THOUGHT YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO LOSE IT.** Dean couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could almost feel a modicum of shyness in Cas’s thoughts. Finally, Cas came into view in all the vast whiteness, the real Cas, feathers and talons and all. He laid one of his massive heads down in front of Dean and opened its jaws to reveal the sword, long and gleaming, perched on the floor of his mouth.

Dean was just wondering how exactly he was going to pick it up when Cas said, or thought or whatever,  **IT IS NOT MATERIAL. YOU NEED NOT HAVE A BODY TO WIELD IT.**

Okaaaay. That wasn’t the most helpful comment, but Dean focused on the sword. Suddenly, it was no longer in Cas’s mouth; he knew it was under his power. He didn’t know how he knew this; he just did. But he did know that it felt good to have it back in his hands. Or whatever.

**YOUR SENSES ON EARTH HELP YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS INTERACT WITH THE MATERIAL WORLD, BUT THEY OFTEN ARE AN IMPEDIMENT. HERE, THEY ARE NOT NEEDED AS A FILTER. HERE, YOU INTERACT WITH REALITY DIRECTLY, RATHER THAN YOUR SENSES’ INTERPRETATION OF IT.**

Dean could practically feel Sam’s wonder at this statement. All Dean got out of it was that they could sense stuff here even without their bodies, which was good enough for him.

He took in the scene around him. White, pristine walls. A hallway lined with doors on either side, that seemingly went on for eternity. Dean realized it probably did. This was not the Heaven he remembered.

**NO, IT WOULDN’T BE. LAST TIME YOU ONLY HOPPED FROM PERSONAL HEAVEN TO PERSONAL HEAVEN; THIS IS THE REST OF THE LAB. COME, WE MUST LEAVE BEFORE ANY OF THE MORTAL HANDLERS RETURN.**

Cas was right; they couldn’t hang around here forever. Guess there was no time to get their sea legs.

Dean was about to ask directions of Cas when Cas suddenly lifted his neck and descended upon both Dean and Sam, his jaw gaping. Dean felt a burst of primal fear that froze him helplessly in place as the viper’s maw fell towards them rapidly. He wanted to duck, but he had no body to duck with; he wanted to run, but he wasn’t quite sure how to move yet. Before he could react at all, he felt himself wrenched up into the sky, far, far up, to a dizzying height, and suddenly he was looking at the hallway from...the same perspective. Man, he did not understand the physics of this place.

And, just as suddenly as he was picked up, he was dumped unceremoniously into a pile of feathers. It took Dean a while to get his bearings, but when he did he realized he was perched on Castiel’s withers, just between the twin spots where the angel’s powerful wings linked to the rest of his body. Sam was at his side; again, he simply knew this. And he also knew that Sam was just as lost as he was in this incredibly alien world.

And then they were moving. Dean was caught off guard by the shifting of Cas beneath him; he pitched forward and somehow held onto Cas’s feathers, gripping the strong rachi of the ones on either side of him. The movement was strange, by the feel of it a mixture between slithering and walking. Cas’s belly was clearly on the ground, and his core was definitely working, but his shoulders shifted as well as his relatively short legs pushed him forward bit by bit like some sort of elongated lizard. It was clearly not the most comfortable mode of transportation for him, and his wings twitched with every movement as though he had to make a conscious effort to suppress the instinct to take to the air. But he made progress nevertheless. A hell of a lot more progress than Dean and Sam would have made on their own, at least for that matter.

They continued in that way for an instantaneous eternity. Dean watched as the doors whisked by.  _ My mother is in one of those. My father is in one of those. _

Dean hoped with all his being that they were in the same one. Because they would be trapped there for all time.

**THERE’S NO ONE HERE,** Cas thought eventually.

_ Yeah, thank God...or, you know, whoever. _

But Cas did not seem relieved by this; if anything, his anxiety mounted after each empty hallway they passed. Dean peered down each one, expecting to suddenly run into a giant serpent, but all he saw were vacant hallways that stretched on endlessly into the distance.

After an immeasurable amount of time, Cas slither-crawled up to a wall. Dean hadn’t seen it coming at all; one moment it had seemed like the hallways had no end, just like all the others, and the next there was solid whiteness before them. Dean looked up; the wall, too, seemed to stretch on forever. He would’ve been getting a headache by now, if he’d had a head to ache.

**ARE YOU READY?**

_ For what? _

**TO ENTER HEAVEN.**

Dean looked at the solid whiteness before him. He saw no door. He was starting to realize, though, that in this place silly things like solidity and finite dimensions to things didn’t mean much.

_ I guess. _

Sam thought he would be never be ready for what was on the other side of that wall. Dean was inclined to agree with him.

Cas obviously took their reluctant acceptance as an affirmative, and continued towards the door. His heads and necks seemed to pass through it as if it were nothing more than fog. The fog slid down Cas’s necks quickly, far too quickly for Dean’s liking. Dean watched helplessly as the wall of white approached, rolling towards him, an unstoppable force, it was going to drown him, it was going to smother him--

For a long moment there was nothing. No Cas. No Sam. No sensation. Nothing. Nothing but the white.

And then there was color.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Heaven! So I get a little trippy in this and you're gonna see my science fantasy / philosophical side come out. I'm going to try to not let the incomprehensible setting get in the way of the narrative but, you know...a lot of alien physics are about to come into play. Please tell me what you think of my handling of it so far and any suggestions you may have !
> 
> Also, side note for those into religion or philosophy: "In a Mirror, Darkly" comes from Corinthians 1 Ch. 13 (the one you always hear at weddings). Because of its use at weddings, most people don't realize that there is an interesting philosophy of metaphysics that I think is hinted here as well. I've always thought Paul's words here sounded interestingly close to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Since he was an educated man, I wonder if he studied Plato. Anyways, just musing. If anyone has any info on that, I'd love to hear from you!


	18. Face to Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean visit Cas's hometown.

If Dean had eyes, they would definitely be bursting into flame right now. His brain would have been leaking out of his ears. Dean had no idea what he was looking at, but there was at least one thing he was certain of: the world before him was not meant for mortals to look upon.

Thin ribbons of bright, violent light raced past Dean in a torrent of colors, some of which Dean was pretty sure he’d never seen before. It took some time for Dean to realize that the strands of light were not thin at all; they were simply very far away. Or...Dean couldn’t be sure at all, his depth perception was all off here. He was pretty sure that there weren’t just the three standard dimensions here. Height, width, length...but there was something else as well.

Suddenly Dean was thrown back to that day in the meadow, the first day he had ever seen Cas as as he truly was. He had walked into the meadow expecting to experience that first meeting as if in a dream. Cas would be there, but he would be not quite real. No substance to him. Just out of reach. To his shock and overwhelming joy, he had found that to not be true at all. Instead of seeming unreal, Cas had seemed  _ more than real _ . As if the Cas he had known before had been nothing but a mirage, just a sketch on a scrap of paper, and that for the first time he was meeting Cas face to face.

Here, now, he had that sensation again. Except this time it was for the  _ whole world _ .

As he focused more, he realized that ribbons were not ribbons at all, but solid and firm. And smooth. Dean looked up, tracing the contours of one of the objects with his gaze. It spiraled up and up. Dean expected to not see an end. To his astonishment, though, the object ended in a point not too far above.

Gradually, he became aware of Sam’s thoughts. Sam was just as confused as he was; he was attempting to take in the entire picture of his surroundings, but was having little luck. The new colors and dimensions were simply too overwhelming. Dean tried to take stock. They were surrounded by those large, colorful objects. Most were smooth, some were course, but all were hard. The objects stood sentinel as far as Dean could make out, a whole forest of the things crowding in around them and below them.

Dean felt a mounting panic. Where were they? And where was Cas? They were just on him, for Christ’s sake!

_ Minerals _ .

The word popped into his mind unbidden, and Dean wondered where it had come from. He assumed it had to have come from Sam, because there was no way his mind was going in any direction close to that.

_ Minerals. They look like minerals. _

Sam was right. They  _ did _ look like minerals--magnified a millionfold. Like precious gems glowing in a darkened cavern. That still didn’t explain where the hell they were.

Suddenly there was movement above them. A bright light that cast a deep shadow. Dean looked up.

Two black voids hung over him, so deep that the surroundings seemed to dim by their very presence. The holes sucked in a mass of light around them, molding the light into a terrible shape. Long, thin pincers. A whip like tail ending in a pointed barb. Sharp patterns across its entire body that screamed danger. Dean instinctually took hold of his sword, raising it above both himself and his brother in defense--

The scorpion, or whatever it was, went flying, along with several of the large objects around them. Dean threw himself to the ground, flat on the rock, he  _ was _ the rock for a brief moment, shielding himself from whatever fresh horror was advancing on them. This  _ is Paradise? I’ll take oblivion! _

And then he was lifted up.

Up.

Up.

And once again deposited into a mass of feathers.

Dean felt a surge of relief wash over him as he sank into the feathers.  _ Oh, thank fuck. Thank fuck. What the in the fucking hell was that?! _

**A SINGULARITY.**

_ A-- _

_ A black hole,  _ Sam supplied.

So, they’d been outdoors in Heaven for all of two fucking seconds and they’d already run into a black hole. Yeah, it was a good thing they’d brought Cas.

_ You guys just let black holes run around your neighborhood like that? You guys don’t have pest control, or something? _

Cas didn’t answer, and Dean realized he’d hit a nerve. He just didn’t know which one. Sam didn’t either.

Dean tried another question.  _ So...where are we? _

**THE SANDBOX.**

_ What? _

**WE ARE IN THE SANDBOX, ON THE OTHER SIDE.**

Dean pushed through the mass of emerald feathers before him to look over the side of Castiel’s flank. Endless grains of golden sand stretched out before them. The light from Castiel’s feathers glinted off of each one of them at a different angle, painting them all a slightly different hue.

It was then that Sam realized.

_ Those minerals down there, that we were surrounded by--those were grains of sand, weren’t they? _

Cas nodded one of his massive heads.

Nuh-uh. Dean looked again. Now the grains seemed--well, not like normal grains, but the size of normal grains. They would have had to have been...microscopic, to see what they had been seeing, if what Sam had said were true.

Dean looked out over the great vista that was visible from his perch. Even from this height, the sand stretched endlessly, collecting in massive drifts as far as the eye could see.

_ This sure doesn’t look like a sandbox to me _ .

_ Try not to think about it, _ Sam advised. That seemed like the best approach to Dean.

They were moving. Dean wasn’t sure how long they had been moving; it was as if the movement had never really begun. But the sharp slithering of grains against feather, the feel of Cas’s powerful shoulder muscles rippling beneath the feathers surrounding Dean, and the gradual decrease of the distance between them and the closest sand dune all told Dean that at one point Cas must have set himself in motion.

The light of the sun was blinding against the white-yellow sands, but somehow Dean didn’t feel like he was in a furnace. The nearest dune still seemed lightyears away, but Dean could see every individual grain, sparkling in the glare. He could feel every edge of every shell, every charge of every atom.

So inundated was he with all of the details, all of the things he’d never thought to look for before, couldn’t have looked for before, that it took him a long time to realize what was bothering him.

_ Where is everyone? _

He’d noticed this in the lab, too. There, he had been grateful not to run into any other angels, but now it was getting a little creepy. He had no idea how long they’d been in Heaven, if they’d even left the sandbox yet, but in however much time they had been here the only celestial they had seen so far was a freaking  _ black hole _ . He knew that angels were an endangered species, but this was the portal to Earth, for God’s sake. Dean would have thought that this would be a hub for the last remnants of angelic civilization.

**EARTH IS NOT THE ONLY PLANET WE HAVE INTEREST IN,** Cas said crisply.  **AND MANY ANGELS...DO NOT WANT TO BE REMINDED OF THE PLANET THAT HAS SPELLED SUCH DISASTER FOR THEM.**

_ Oh cool, then they’ll finally leave us the fuck alone? _

**I DOUBT IT. ANGELS HAVE LONG MEMORIES, AND UNLIKE YOU WE ARE NOT CALLED TO FORGIVE BY OUR FATHER.**

Dean hadn’t really meant for Cas to pick up on that thought, but he supposed in this place there was no avoiding it.  _ Well, that’s a shitty double standard _ .

**YES, WELL, TO BE FAIR, FATHER IS MORE PRONE TO FORGIVE YOU THAN HE IS HIS FIRST CREATIONS. YOUR KIND THROW HUNDREDS OF POINTLESS WARS, AND HE SENDS COUNTLESS PROPHETS TO GUIDE YOU. WE THROW A SINGLE WAR AND HE ABANDONS US WITHOUT EVEN LEAVING US THE GIFT OF FREE WILL.**

Dean’s thoughts scattered for a moment, surprised as he was by Cas’s sudden outburst. Cas was suddenly a stone wall, emotionless, and Dean got the distinct impression he was closing off his thoughts from Sam and him. It seemed Dean wasn’t the only one who let stray thoughts get away from him.

_ Okay. Yeah.  _ Dean searched around for something else to think about. His thoughts about angels in general were rising dangerously close to the surface of his mind, and he was  _ sure _ Cas wouldn’t react well to those.  _ How long until we’re out of the sandbox? _

**JUST A FEW MORE YEARS.**

Before Dean could ask what Cas meant by that, the sand was suddenly gone. In an instant. In its place were enormous pillars of grooved wall, stretching upwards into nothingness. The glare of the alien sun was gone, and in its place was darkness speckled here and there with strange patterns of faint light. Cas glowed gloriously in the shadows as he slithered through giant, tarp-like objects that crackled as they fell under Cas’s weight.

_ The hell--? _

_ We’re not travelling through space,  _ Sam realized.  _ We’re travelling through time. _

_ What? _

_ Did you see any woods around that park? No. Just houses. But when did we pass the houses? _

They hadn’t passed any. Dean had simply assumed that Heaven’s physics were all screwy, and that was a good enough explanation for him. But he had no idea what Sam was talking about, woods-wise.

_ We’re tiny. Why, I don’t know, but-- _

**THREE-DIMENSIONAL SIZE IS OF LITTLE IMPORT WHEN YOU ARE DISEMBODIED.**

Dean gazed up at the grooved wall.  _ No way. _

It was strangely beautiful, seeing a tree from this angle. Flakes of bark chased each other up a never ending sea of mahogany. Veins of orange, reds, and browns reached out of the leaves that Cas moved over, the friction tearing them from the delicate skins of each leaf. Dean could feel more than smell the damp scent of their decay. But it wasn’t just their decay--he could actually feel, see, hear each individual bacterium feasting on the decaying leaves, depositing the delinked atoms into the moist soil and cool air.

So many decaying leaves he had driven by, walked over, raked up and tossed on the curb...how had he never known there was an entire universe in each one?

So this was what it was like to be an angel. Dean thought of Cas, confused and hungry as Dean and Sam had driven him back to the Bunker after his fatal one-night stand. Dean had been so caught up in the horror of Cas getting  _ killed right in front of him _ , of him being starving and homeless and in danger and confused about not having his powers, that he hadn’t really thought about just how...how traumatic the loss of his body, of his senses would have been to him.

He must have felt blind.

_ Cas! _

Cas jumped at Sam’s thoughts.  **WHAT?**

_ Angel, 4:00! _

Dean would have bet his demon blade that Cas didn’t know what 4:00 meant in terms of location, but thousands of eyes came in handy, and all of Cas’s heads pointed towards what Sam had noticed right away. Dean braced for Cas to burst into action, but instead all the tenseness seemed to drain from Cas’s body immediately. He seemed...resigned.

_ Cas-- _

**THAT’S...NOT AN ANGEL. NOT ANYMORE.**

Dean took a second, longer look at the mass of electric blue feathers that had initially caught Sam’s attention. But it wasn’t really an electric blue, was it? Not in the way that everything else here was electric, their colors sending unbridled energy throughout their surroundings. It was...three-dimensional. It looked like something from Earth, not from Heaven. It looked like something...dead. Something that had an end, and had reached it.

The seraph’s body lay, sprawled across the forest floor, forgotten as the orange and yellow leaves fell gently over its decaying body. By now it was almost completely submerged in the brittle foliage.

_ That’s not an angel. Not anymore, _ Cas had said, and initially Dean had simply assumed he was being tragic, dramatic in his phrasing, because Cas had a habit of talking that way. But then it occurred to him that, no, there really wasn’t an angel there anymore, was there? For the past several years, Dean had known that there was the promise of the afterlife for humans, had even experienced it once or twice, even if one of the possible destinations held a fate worse than nonexistence. And even before he had known that for sure, so many humans around the globe had some instinctive sense that there was  _ something _ after death, even if they had no idea what it was. But for an angel--

They knew. They knew what awaited them. And they knew that it was nothing.

Dean had a brief, horrifying mental image of Cas, lying sprawled on the ground, his long, serpentine form still, his emerald feathers dulled, his fiery eyes snuffed forever. Four hundred million years, evaporated. And no hope of Heaven, no hope of lasting peace. Just...gone.

He shook himself of his thoughts.  _ So, what got the jump on that guy? Should we be concerned? _

**NO.**

Dean waited for Cas to continue. When he remained silent, though, Dean prodded him.  _ Buddy, you didn’t answer my first question. _

Cas’s thoughts came slowly.  **I HAVE NOT BEEN ENTIRELY TRUTHFUL WITH YOU.**

Dean’s heart fell, and a familiar fear burrowed into it on the descent. That fear of betrayal.

It was as if he was standing in Bobby’s house again staring at Cas’s vessel through a wall of fire.  _ Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not working with Crowley _ , he had said.

And even then, Cas was deeply embedded enough into his vessel’s body language that he could not meet Dean’s eyes.

_ What is it, Cas. _

**I WAS CONCERNED FOR YOUR SAFETY WHEN YOU INSISTED ON MAKING THIS TRIP, YES. BUT THERE WAS...I HAD OTHER REASONS FOR MY RELUCTANCE.**

_ Like? _

**DEAN--**

_ Like?! _

**DEAN.** And here Cas plucked Sam and Dean off his back and set them in front of him.  **DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE HUNTED THE INSECT-RABBIT HYBRID, RIGHT AFTER MY RETURN FROM PURGATORY?**

It took Dean a while to figure out what Cas was thinking about. Parsing Cas’s thoughts was like trying to use a kaleidoscope as a telescope. Insect-rabbit hybrid.  _ You mean the old dude who was bringing cartoons to life? _

Cas nodded his great horned head.  **AND WHAT I SAID, ABOUT THE STATE OF HEAVEN?**

Sam had no idea what Cas was talking about. But Dean did.  _ We about to come up on a battlefield?  _ Damn. It was a shittier idea than he had thought, bringing Cas here. The guy wasn’t stable in the best of times.

A hint of annoyance began to taint Sam’s confusion, and Dean thought he'd better explain, letting his memory of his conversation with Cas flow freely between them. Sam’s confusion quickly turned to a sympathy that bordered on pity.

Cas looked away, and the fire of his eyes dimmed.  **I AM NOT TO BE PITIED. I WAS...I THOUGHT...I WAS ARROGANT ENOUGH TO THINK I COULD TAKE THE PLACE OF ELOHIM. I WAS GLUTTED ON POWER. I WAS…**

Dean didn’t know what to say. There really was nothing one  _ could _ say to that.

_ Come on, Cas. Let’s just make it past here. Come on,  _ Sam urged.

But Cas seemed to be looking off in the distance now, and his thoughts were far away. The colors were slowly leeched out of the surroundings.

**HOW CAN I DO THIS?**

_ Do what? _ Dean thought.

**SALOME WAS RIGHT. HOW DARE I WALK INTO HERE, AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE DONE, AND TAKE EVEN MORE FROM THEM?**

_ What? Cas, you’re gonna save a large chunk of the U.S. _

**A LARGE CHUNK OF THE U.S.** Dean could sense a bitterness in Cas’s thoughts. He waited for Cas to continue.

**DEAN, I HAVE SEEN HUNDREDS OF CIVILIZATIONS THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE, TRILLIONS OF SENTIENT BEINGS COME AND GO AS THEIR PLANETS CIRCLED THEIR RESPECTIVE SUNS. SPECIES EVOLVE AND GO EXTINCT. EVERY ONE EXCEPT THE CELESTIALS.**

_ Well, maybe it’s their turn, _ Dean thought, forgetting for a moment that his thoughts were no longer private. He could feel Sam’s sharp irritation, and Cas…

**A CELESTIAL’S DEATH IS NOT THE SAME AS A MORTAL’S.** The ground began to shake, and the brilliant sky seemed to crack like glass.

_ Seriously, Cas? You gonna pull that speciesist shit on me? Our lives don’t matter the way yours do, is that it? _

**IT’S NOT A DEATH AT ALL, DEAN! IT IS...WHEN AN ANGEL DIES, IT IS NO IMPORT HOW IT HAS LIVED ITS LIFE. HOW MANY MILLIONS, EVEN BILLIONS OF YEARS IT HAS SPENT IN UNWAVERING SERVICE TO THE LORD. THERE IS NO REWARD FOR US. ONLY...OBLIVION.** He turned to look at his fallen sibling, all of his bluster evaporating as quickly as it came.  **THEY WERE JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS, DEAN. THEY WERE JUST DOING WHAT THEY WERE DESIGNED TO DO. THEY KNEW NOTHING ELSE. AND BECAUSE OF ME, NOW THEY’LL NEVER GET THE CHANCE.**

Dean, who had been prepared to bite back, lost all desire to at the wave of sorrow that rolled physically through the woods, radiating out from Cas. It was clear the guy wasn’t ready to make his way through an angel graveyard. There had to be another way to get to the halo hospital, or healing center, or whatever.

**THIS IS THE PATH LEAST LIKELY TO HOLD ANY ANGELS. LIVING ONES, AT LEAST.**

Damn, he was gonna have to get better at keeping his thoughts quiet.  _ All right, well, then, give us a boost and let’s roll. _

Cas gave a reluctant nod, plucked them both up, and dumped them unceremoniously on his shoulders. He once again took up his plodding crawl through the forest.

As they passed through the slowly changing landscape, the fallen, decaying bodies of angels showed up more and more frequently. Sometimes, only the stark imprint of wings could be found, forever burned into the ground and nearby trunks. Dean wondered if that meant someone had moved the body, perhaps given it a proper burial or send-off or however angels honored their dead. A surviving garrison-mate, maybe two, carrying their fallen comrade between them. Or maybe it had just been dragged away by a black hole or something.

Their surroundings eventually changed again, more gradually than the first time. The weather became crisper, biting, brisk. Snow began to cover the ground.

_ Hey, I thought we were moving backwards in time. Why we going from fall to winter? _

_ I think it’s the Ice Age, Dean, _ Sam countered.

Cas didn’t say anything. In fact, he had stopped moving.

_ Hey, buddy, what’s-- _

Oh, shit.

The woods thinned out abruptly, leaving endless snow in its wake. And countless bodies.

Dean had never seen so many dead angels in one place. Hell, he’d never seen so many dead  _ humans _ in one place.

Dean had a flashback (or flashforward as the case may be) to--it had been Ellen’s house, when he was pretty young. She’d been away, and she’d doused the house in Raid before leaving. When her husband had taken them all back there after a hunt, the floor had just been littered with roaches. Roach legs, roach wings, too. Just strewn around in the middle of the kitchen. Like they hadn’t even had time to get to a corner before they suffocated to death.

It was just so... _ wrong _ to see that here.

At first, they’d looked like dead, dried out worms in the sun...but a closer look, and the clear mark of wings surrounded most of them. Here and there, a few prints were missing, as if the angel hadn’t had all its wings when it died. But that wasn’t as bad as the injuries that were still clearly visible on the corpses. Dean didn’t think he would ever see anyone as battle-scarred as Cas, but some of the wounds here could give him a run for his money.

Something moved to the left. Bright colors that looked almost gaudy against the blank snow. Some sort of creature.  _ Please don’t be another freakin’ black hole. _

The creature was bowed over the corpse of an angel, tearing out entrails with sharp teeth. The angel’s silvery blood was smeared across its jaws. The sound of Cas slithering through the snow must have alerted it, because it looked up.

It wasn’t a black hole, but that didn’t comfort Dean because what was staring at him was infinitely worse. It seemed to have no torso--just two legs, two outlines of wings and two horns attached to an absurdly long mouth filled with equally sharp teeth. Its colors were a violent scarlet and gold. It stiffened as it took the party in.

_ Cas… _

Cas seemed to have seen it, too. He turned one of his heads to stare at the creature for a moment, then, to Dean’s horror, bolted off towards it, growling and shrieking in a slew of Enochian.

The creature sprang into an ungainly flight, cawing and screeching. In flight like this, it became even more horrible, its limbs disproportionate and ungainly.

_ The hell was that! _ Dean yelled as it took off.

**NEBULA** **_GEVAOAN._ ** **THEY FEAST ON THE DEAD.** Cas’s faces darkened in anger. He gently nudged the four faces of the fallen seraph out from under its body, his shoulders drooping when he saw the ones that were still recognizable. He hooted softly in Enochian then, laying them out in a more dignified pose, rolling the seraph over until its open belly was not exposed.

_ So, uh... _ Dean really didn’t want Cas hanging around here looking at his dead comrades more than he absolutely had to.  _ How ‘bout we move on to that healing center, huh, Cas? _

**IT’S NO USE.** Cas looked around at the corpses littering the ground.  **THE HEALING CENTER WAS HERE. IT MUST HAVE BEEN OBLITERATED DURING THE WAR.**

_ Sort of a scorched earth tactic? Take out the enemy’s medic station? _ Sam ventured.

**WOULD THAT THAT WERE THE CASE. ONCE I HAD TAKEN CARE OF RAFAEL, AND TURNED TO DESTROYING HIS FOLLOWERS, I WAS...INDISCRIMINATE IN MY TARGETS. I WAS IN NO STATE TO TAKE NOTE OF WHO OR WHAT I DESTROYED, IT WAS ALL DONE AT ONCE.** Cas looked at the ground as he said this, as though his talons were suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

Shit.  _ Well, there has to be more than one angel hospital. What about dino-times? Maybe we should just go back further, or something? _

Cas shook his heads.  **THAT WAS THE ONLY ONE ON THIS PLANET. AND I CAN’T GET TO ANY OF THE OTHERS WITHOUT FLYING.**

So. That was it. It was incredible; Dean had expected his emotions to feel dream-like, not all there in Heaven, but if anything they were sharper. More direct. Now, as he gazed out over the barren, arctic wasteland, he felt the dismay of failure.  _ Well, let’s get the Hell out of here, then, before a live angel finds us. _

Cas gave a slow nod and, in a daze, turned around and began slithering back the way he had come.

They had not gone far when they happened upon that creepy nebula again, picking at yet another dead angel. Cas gave it a glance but seemed to not have the heart to work up the rage he had felt earlier at its debasement of the fallen soldiers. Dean, however, felt a spark of anger that he had not felt the last time. These were angels, for God’s sake; they didn’t deserve to lie strewn about a snowy desert like the roaches in Ellen’s kitchen. They were dicks, a lot of them, yes; but hadn’t Cas been a bit of one before the Winchesters had smoothed some of his rough edges? Whatever this nameless soldier deserved, it wasn’t this.

_ Dean, try to keep your thoughts a little quieter, it’ll hear you,  _ Sam interjected.

_ So? Someone needs to shoot that goddamn thing. _

_ Yeah, and good luck with that if you scare it off. _

Dean looked back at the creature, confused. Then he saw the scarlet hide; the same texture as the ethereal skin he had recently been stitching up.

_ You sayin’ we should get ourselves a live one? _

Sam’s agreement flitted through his mind.  _ I mean, where do you think they get the grafts from? _

Dean processed this.  _ Cas? _

But Cas was one step ahead of them, literally, and was already slowly advancing on the creature. His heads were practically on the ground, although one was curled back slightly, poised to attack.

The creature stiffened again at Cas’s approach, springing into flight once again, but Cas was simply too fast for it. In the blink of an eye he had snatched it up in his powerful jaws, and there was a brutal cracking sound.

_ Damn, Cas. Bet Bobby would have loved having you on one his real hunting trips. _

Sarcasm built up in Cas’s mind, and he was about to answer when something slammed into them from the side. Sam and Dean went tumbling off of Cas’s back, flopping to the ground helplessly.

Dean tried to get his bearings. The surface beneath him was dry and brittle; not at all the freezing ice he had been expecting. It seemed as if whatever had rammed into them had thrown them right out of the Ice Age and back into the forest. Dean looked up to take stock of his companions.

He could feel Sam several feet away from him (or several inches, because three-dimensional space seemed to be a sort of take-it-or-leave-it thing here). Sam was equally startled, searching wildly around for an explanation. A few moments later, a massive shadow gave them one.

At first, Dean thought the shadow was being cast by Cas; the first thing Dean saw was feathers, long necks, and massive broken wings. But it didn’t take him long to realize that there were even more feathers, necks, and wings than normal (and that was saying a lot for a seraph). And some of the feathers were bright fucking orange and yellow, two colors that Dean was pretty damn sure Cas didn’t have, since he’d been staring at that gaudy red and green for the last couple of weeks while he tried to piece Cas back together.

It was another seraph, and right now it was locked in a violent embrace with Castiel, its fangs and talons flashing in the low light. Cas raked his claws quickly down the seraph’s exposed underbelly. The seraph spit angrily and sprang back, spreading its vibrant wings, lowering its heads threateningly. Cas curled backwards and took up the same poise. Though their bodies were astoundingly different from anything Dean knew, he recognized a Mexican standoff when he saw one.

As Cas and the other seraph circled each other, Dean focused on his angelic sword. He still had no idea how to interact with that thing while disembodied. And, looking at the fight before him, he doubted it mattered.

He knew they were massive. Hell, he’d used a fucking hammer to stitch Cas up. But seeing them in a street fight like this, it really drove that knowledge home. Dean couldn’t even begin to figure out how to enter this battle. Even dozens of yards away, one misplaced foot could crush Sam or Dean, or a stray tail could knock them into another era. Dean balanced on the edge of the clearing, watching helplessly as he tried to figure out what to do.

Every once in a while, the other seraph would lunge suddenly, and Cas would swerve, attempting to attack from the side. They went through that cycle about three times before the seraph released several bellowed chords from its long trumpets. Cas sang back, and Dean realized they were speaking Enochian. Dean couldn’t really understand any of it, but thought he could pick out something along the lines of “monkey-loving traitor” among all of it, so he got the general gist of the conversation.

Cas seemed to be on the defensive the entire time, but Dean got the impression that it was intentional; Cas’s voice was far lower than the other seraph’s, as if he were attempting to diffuse the situation. Although, given the graveyard they had just left, Dean doubted Cas would be able to talk his way out of this one.

The seraph lunged again, this time from a different angle; it seemed to lift its heads up all at once to give itself the advantage of height, then lunged downward towards one of Cas’s mangled wings. In doing so, it left its soft underbelly open to attack. Dean saw it, and apparently Cas did too, for he dipped one of his heads under the other seraph’s extended necks to make what would surely be a killing blow. To Dean’s horror, though, he hesitated just slightly, and the other seraph clamped fangs the size of redwoods down onto Cas’s most damaged wing.

Cas screeched in pain, and Dean could feel the sound in his soul. He stared, frozen in shock, as the other seraph dragged Cas by his wing, throwing him at least a mile away. Then it slithered quickly up to him, and that was when Dean broke.

He wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but suddenly he was moving, racing after the other seraph towards Cas’s prone form. He hardly even noticed Sam keeping up at his side. He had to get to Cas. Had to get to him, before that thing--

The seraph had reached Cas. Even from hundreds of yards away, Dean could see it, striking at Cas’s necks and belly over and over and over again. With each strike, Cas would twitch and writhe. Every time he tried to get up, to regain some semblance of control, the seraph would strike him down again, punctuating its attacks with what Dean could only assume were more insults. Arcs of silver blood splattered onto the dying leaves with each strike, and Dean screamed noiselessly with each one:  _ No! Cas, no! _

When he finally reached the seraph, he had no plan, no thought other than to get it off of Cas, to tear it to pieces. In comparison to the angel, his beautiful, sturdy sword was almost pitifully tiny, but he went and did one of the most batshit things he had ever done in his life anyway--he coasted up to the seraph’s hind paw and drove his sword directly into it.

The seraph screeched and whirled around, and suddenly thousands upon thousands of fiery eyes were fixed solely on Sam and Dean, and Dean felt the primal, instinctual fear of facing down a much bigger, much stronger predator. It had been terrifying enough when it was Cas, his Cas, good old Cas, but now it was a stranger, and this seraph wasn’t a  _ him _ , not a friend with history and emotions, it was an  _ it _ , no more sentient than the hundreds of monsters Dean had ganked over the years, and it was going down just like the rest of them.

Dean expected to be smote instantly; he expected for those giant fangs to come down on him, and for oblivion to envelope him. But what happened instead was infinitely more infuriating.

The angel gave them a cursory look and went back to attacking Cas.

_ Seriously?  _ Sam thought at his side.  _ We don’t even rate being crushed, or shaken off? Ignored? Seriously? _

Dean, filled with even more fury than before, grabbed onto the angel’s wildly thrashing tail and began scrambling up it. He was gonna underestimate humans? Fine. He’d learn how much of a mistake that was the hard way, just like all the other halos had. Just like Lucifer had. Just like Michael had.

Dean continued to climb, Sam’s alarm banging against his mind like a bomb siren. The angel still had no reaction; Dean thought that perhaps it couldn’t feel him, perhaps it simply was too big to notice he was still there. Good.

As Dean began to climb one of the necks of the seraph, the going got a little harder; the angel’s heads were moving all over the place, and the tiniest movement on its part would throw Dean all over the damn place. And at this height the drop was dizzying. It didn’t matter that Dean knew he was disembodied--his instincts hadn’t quite figured that out yet, so he avoided looking down.

_ Just be like Legolas in Lord of the Rings _ , Dean thought as he crested the top of the creature’s head (the one he was on was vaguely feline-like).  _ You got this. You got this. _

Dean drove the sword into the nape of the seraph’s neck.

The creature froze for one long moment. The forest fell silent, as if all sound had been sucked up into the glowing wound beneath Dean.

And then there was sound.

The flames of a thousand eyes raged out of control suddenly. Dean could feel the heat all around him. If he had had eyes they most certainly would have burst into flame. Instead, though, he could see every moment of the angel’s death: the feathers burning as blue flame ran up their shafts; the massive faces, frozen in rictuses of shock and agony as beams of light burst from each eye and trumpet; the wings, the great wings disappearing in smoke as the Grace roared up to each tip.

And then Dean was falling. Or rising, floating on the smoke of a hundred million years. Drifting away from the pain, the heat. Something cool was at his back. Cool…

...and wet.

Dean reared back to find himself in a lake of silver. Blood.

_ Cas’s blood. _

Dean snapped back to reality then and ran over to Cas, hoping against hope that he hadn’t joined the fight too late.

Sam was already at Cas’s side. As Dean approached, he could feel Sam’s anxiety.

_ How is he? _

_ Not good. _

Dean stared at Cas’s prone form. The fire of his eyes was a bare flicker. Each breath was long, pained, and his massive chest moved up and down several feet with each one. His legs were curled up at his side, and his heads were flopped haphazardly against the ground, his jaws half opened and filled with his own slick blood. Lying on the brittle leaves, he looked no different than any of the other lifeless snakes that had dotted the glacial plains of the Ice Age.

_ Cas? _

_ Cas? _

Cas let out a groan that shook the ground, and Dean nearly laughed in relief.  _ Cas? _

Cas trained the weak flames of his eyes on Dean.  **DEAN?**

_ It’s me, buddy. I’m here. Sam and I are here. We gotcha. We’re gonna get you back home. _

**HOME? BUT…** He lifted one of his heads slightly and looked around.  **ISN’T THIS HEAVEN?**

Dean felt an inexplicable sadness at this statement.  _ I mean the Bunker, angel. We’re gonna get you back to the Bunker. _

**OH…**

The Bunker was a great idea, but it immediately became pretty clear that they were gonna have a problem with execution.

_ Cas, you think you can get up? Cuz I’m strong, but I ain’t that strong. _

But Cas seemed to be ignoring him. His eyes were fixed on something behind Dean and Sam.

**DID YOU KILL HER?**

_ Who? _ Dean looked around to figure out who Cas was talking about. The seraph he had just ganked was lying in a heap of orange and yellow feathers behind them, the ashes of its wings spreading out to the trees, disturbingly beautiful.  _ Oh, her. Yeah. Why, did you know her? _

Instantly Dean realized it was the wrong thing to say. The fire of Cas’s eyes flashed dangerously. He shifted, bringing his massive weight perilously close to Sam and Dean, and began slithering past them.  **WE NEED TO LEAVE BEFORE ANY MORE ANGELS ARE MADE AWARE OF OUR PRESENCE.**

_ You’re welcome! _ Dean thought, annoyed. Sam and he raced to catch up. Sam grabbed the nebula on the way.

The road back was long. It certainly felt longer than the one there, especially with Cas leaving an obvious trail of blood behind. He was like some sort of glow-in-the-dark slug.

The road back was also travelled in absolute silence. Cas was obviously pissed at Dean, which made Dean sort of pissed at Cas, because he had no idea what he’d done to deserve the cold shoulder. Ganked a feathery bitch that was chopping up Cas like a sushi roll? No loss there.

By the time they reached the portal at the lab, Dean was one hundred percent done with Heaven. He would be a-okay if he never saw Cas’s hometown again. He stepped right up to the shimmering tear in the fabric of the universe, ready to hop back into Earth and back into his body.

But Cas had come to a stop, and was now looking over his shoulder. Back the way they had come.

_ What is it, buddy? _ Dean asked.

Cas just stared back, down the long hallway. Dean wondered if he could see the world beyond, the heavenly universe stretching endlessly through time in all directions.

Eventually, he gave a short shake of his heads, as if clearing his thoughts.  **I’M READY TO GO HOME.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long! This was a difficult chapter to write, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the finished product. I would have made Heaven a little crazier on the physics and weirdness, but I felt it would have gotten in the way of the narrative. I hope that the disembodied, hearing each other's thoughts thing worked out. Please give me your thoughts on how you felt about the way I handled this chapter, and how I can improve in future works when I inevitably end up in a setting like this again!


	19. Back on Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will returns to the Bunker.

The ground beneath Sam was course, yet somehow soft. It felt...unreal, as if there was a film, a veil between Sam and whatever it was he was on.

Everything was black, too. It took Sam an embarrassingly long moment to realize that this was because he was back in his body, and the eyes of said body were currently closed.

The playground. But if they were at the playground, that meant…

Sam jumped to his feet instantly, blinking in the faint light of the sun he knew, the sun he had grown up with. He raised his angel blade, preparing for the two angels who had been guarding the portal to descend on them upon their return.

But Salome and Jafeth simply stood there, blinking in silence at them. Jafeth’s mouth was hanging open.

“Is that...did you bring a nebula back here?”

It took Sam a few seconds to figure out what he was talking about. He looked down at the psychedelic, pterodactyl-like creature at his feet. “Oh. Yeah. You um...you’re not gonna miss it, are you?”

At his side, Dean was supporting an exhausted Cas under his shoulder. “You guys gonna give us grief or are we gonna have to kick your feathery asses again?”

Salome ignored him and barked a question at Cas in Enochian. Cas hissed in pain as he responded. From his tone, he seemed a little pissed. And, from the fact that Salome hadn’t jumped him, it seemed like he hadn’t told her about his spat with the seraph in the forest.

Instead, Salome and Jafeth held a hurried conversation. Then they raced into the portal and disappeared.

“The hell did you say to them?” Dean asked.

“I told them we left a surprise for them near the end of the Ice Age. Didn’t tell them what.”

Dean grunted. “Can’t imagine their gonna take a dead seraph very well.”

Cas shrugged, a movement that elicited another grunt of pain. “I don’t think there’s anything I could do at this point that would make them hate me  _ more _ .”

When they reached the Impala, Dean gently placed Cas into the backseat. To Sam’s surprise, he climbed in the back with Cas and nodded at Sam. “You drive.” Turning back to Cas, he said, “Hey, buddy, what’s the damage?”

Cas sighed. “I think my stitches got ripped open.”

Dean groaned. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Cas said. “Honestly, I’m surprised I got out of that alive.”

“Of course you got out of it alive,” Dean muttered as he fussed over Cas’s seatbelt. “You’re the friggin’ Hero of the First Seal, or whatever. You’re not the type to get taken down by a single cloud-hopper, come on.”

Sam started the car and pulled back onto the road.

“Now, where does it hurt?” Dean asked.

Sam saw Cas roll his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Nowhere you can see right now, Dean. Just…”

“What?”

“I appreciate your concern but would you please just...shut up...for a few minutes?” Cas’s breaths came in short, pained gasps.

Dean was silent for a while, and Sam waited for outburst. But all Dean said was, “Yeah, sure. Sure, Cas.”

Silence fell over the Impala. Sam missed a stop sign and was only alerted to the fact by the grating, high-pitched honk of a puke-green Kia Soul.

“C’mon, Sam, I’m trusting you with my girl,” Dean snapped.

“Yeah, my bad,” Sam muttered, distracted. “Just getting used to being corporeal again.”

But it wasn’t that. It was the image that was imprinted on the back of his eyeballs.

A field of dead angels.

_ Cas did that. _

Sam shook his head, but the traitorous thought was there anyways. Of course, he’d known that Cas was a war criminal in Heaven. But knowing it and seeing it were two totally different things.

Sam wondered if Dean was thinking the same thing. The occasional glance in the mirror showed Dean’s concerned gaze to be fixed on Cas. Was the concern  _ for _ Cas, or…?

Sam didn’t know, but for the first time in a long time, he didn’t like the fact that his back was to Cas. And he hated himself for it.

* * *

A few hours later, Sam pulled in at a Gas n’ Sip.

“Hey, Sam, none of that regular shit. Only the best for my girl,” Dean said from the back as Sam pulled up to a pump.

Sam threw the keys at Dean. “You feed her. I’m taking a piss.”

The bathroom was par for the course for a Gas n’ Sip bathroom--in other words, disgusting. The floor was wet with what Sam really hoped was water from the sink, and the whole thing smelled like cigarettes and toilet cleaner. Sam walked up to the sink and splashed his face with cold water a few times, then looked into the dirty mirror.

_ Get it together, Sam. _

But when he looked in the mirror, he could still see it. It was faint, a shadow of a memory, but he could almost see those massive, fiery red wings unfurling behind him. The golden viper’s fangs. The raging eyes.

But Castiel wasn’t Lucifer at all--Cas had wanted to  _ save _ humanity. He’d practically destroyed Heaven in order to save Earth. And he’d been crazy at the time, anyways. Not fully himself.

_ He was himself when he tore down your wall, though. _

After finishing up in the bathroom Sam walked out to the Impala. “Hey, Dean, I need your help.”

Dean placed the nozzel back on the pump. “You forget how to aim? I’ve been telling you since you were two, Sammy, the bowl is always farther away than you think it is.”

“No, Dean.” Sam huffed and hitched his chin at the store. “Help me pick out snacks.”

Dean apparently got the message, because he looked back at Cas. “I don’t know about leaving him alone, Sam--”

“Dude, he’s got claws longer than me, he’ll be fine for five mintues.”

Dean sighed. “Okay. But I’m getting a doughnut.”

They were in the chip aisle when Sam turned to Dean. “Dean.”

“Yeah.”

“That um...that field. In Heaven.” He waited for Dean to pick up his sentence, but Dean was silent.

After a few moments, Dean said, “What about it?” His voice was distinctively more chilly than it had been before.

“Dean, he...look, I know he’s your angel, but…”

“You’re damn right he’s my angel. And maybe he made some terrible decisions during the civil war, but he did it for humanity. He ditched everything he knew for humanity. And maybe you’ve forgotten, but he ditched everything he knew because  _ I told him to _ .”

Sam squared his jaw and looked away. “Yeah. Yeah. You know, you’ve changed your tune on that over the last few years.”

Dean gazed at him. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I have. And maybe that’s a good thing.”

Sam looked down. “Yeah. Okay. I guess it just caught me by surprise, when I saw it.”

Dean sighed. “Yeah. Me, too. If I were being honest, well. I wasn’t thrilled about it, let me put it that way. No wonder the angels fucking hate him. But uh, he feels pretty shitty about it, too.”

“Yeah, well, if he didn’t it would be sort of psychopathic, right?”

“No, I mean...look, we’ve had a talk about it before. Couple years ago. Didn’t get to finish, and now I’m wishing we had. He uh, he’s pretty fucked up about it. Told me that if he returned to Heaven, he might kill himself.”

Sam sucked in a breath and glanced out the window. “Oh, shit, should we have--”

“No, no, he’s been to Heaven a few times since then. I just--yeah, it’s bad. It’s bad, there’s no getting around it. But uh, I don’t think us hanging it over him is gonna do any good. He already does that himself. He’s really good at it.”

“Yeah, well, he is a Winchester.”

Dean smiled. “Damn straight.”

“Okay, well, I’m going with the Kettle chips, what do you think Cas’ll want?”

“I don’t know, something weird.”

“That all for you?” the clerk said in a monotone when they got up to the counter.

“Yeah,” Sam said, fishing out a twenty dollar bill. As he gazed at the cashier’s blue vest, he suddenly remembered that Dean said Cas had been working one of these places, back when he’d been human. Back when he’d been homeless.

Surreal to think that the same guy who’d left a field full of dead angels in Heaven had also worked the same job as the bored-looking tween in front of them.

When they got back out to the car, Dean threw a bag of Sour Patch Kids at Cas. “Got these for you. Also, Sam insisted on getting you fruit as well, so here’s a banana.”

Castiel picked up the fruit and surveyed it.

“You pull the skin down like this,” Dean said, attempting to take the banana back from Cas, but Cas rolled his eyes.

“I know what a banana is, Dean, I lived in Mesoamerica for hundreds of years, remember? Also, I used to work at this place, or, one of their sites, at least. They all sell them.” He peeled the fruit, took a bite, and pulled a face. “Ugh, this is  _ not _ a banana.”

“Not fresh,” Sam explained, noting Dean’s confused expression. “That’s why you should buy organic. Taste more real.”

“Oh, for fuck’s--okay. You know what, just eat the candy,” Dean grumbled and buckled his seat belt.

Sam started the car and pulled back out onto the highway.

* * *

Cas had fallen asleep.

Dean didn’t like that at all. Angels didn’t have to sleep. They only lost consciousness when they were really injured.

He didn’t even wake up when Sam pulled off the highway into a motel near Springfield, Illinois.

Sam craned his neck to look around at Dean and Cas. Upon seeing Cas asleep, he said, “I’ll go get us a room.” He yanked the keys from the ignition and deposited them into the cupholder in between the two front seats.

The door slammed as Sam left, and Cas still didn’t wake.

“Hey, Cas?” Dean said gently. “We’re at a motel. Decided we shouldn’t do all fifteen hours in one day.”

Cas’s eyes popped open abruptly.

“Hot damn, you’re awake.”

“I’ve been awake the entire time,” Cas said gruffly. “I just disconnected myself partially from my vessel.”

“You…?”

“I stopped looking through my vessel’s eyes, or moving it. Still holding on to it, but the rest...it takes unnecessary energy.”

“Oh. You feeling any better now?”

Cas looked at the ceiling. “Not particularly.”

Dean felt helpless. He couldn’t stop seeing that seraph in the woods, attacking Cas over and over again, or feeling the cool wetness all around him as he lay in a lake of Cas’s silver blood. And it wasn’t like Cas’s real body wasn’t  _ right here _ . Right here, all around them. But an entire dimension away at the same time. “Anything I can do?” he asked lamely.

Cas closed his eyes again. “Dean, I  _ really _ wish you’d stop asking that. We will just have to wait until we get back to the Bunker.”

Sam rapped on the window of the car. Dean opened his door.

“Room nineteen,” Sam said, “just a few doors down.”

Dean nodded and turned to Cas. “Think you can stand?”

Cas nodded and pushed himself to the edge of the seat. He groaned as he did so. Looking up at Dean, he said, “This may take some time.”

“Here.” Dean said and yanked Cas to his feet, steadying him by placing an arm under his shoulder. As they shuffled down the sidewalk to the room, Dean asked, “Hey, can I ask a question?”

“You can ask another one.”

“Right. So, if it’s all your real body, if your vessel isn’t hurt at all--”

“Then why am I acting like it is?” Cas sucked in a sharp breath as Dean helped him step up on the curb of the sidewalk that bordered the rooms. “Purely psychosomatic.”

“Psycho--”

“My mind is playing tricks on me. I-- _ mm _ \--I am sufficiently connected to my vessel mentally that I’m projecting the pain of my wounds onto the parallel locations on my vessel. As much as it is possible to parallel the body parts of a winged serpent onto the body parts of a primate, that is.”

“So why don’t you just...disconnect?”

“I  _ was _ disconnected until you ‘woke me up’.”

“Oh, right.”

Sam opened the door for them and Dean ushered Cas in. He led him to the nearest bed and gently laid him down. Cas grabbed Dean’s forearm. “There’s not enough beds.”

“What? Oh, Sam and I’ll sleep in the other one. Not like we haven’t done it before. Course, Sam wasn’t a tree then, but--”

“No, I don’t need, I don’t need a bed. It’s not my vessel, it doesn’t matter, I’ll sleep in the chair.”

“Shut up, Cas, you’re sleeping in the bed.”

“Dean--”

“For my own sanity.”

Cas’s eyes rolled up in their sockets as he flopped back down onto the bed with a groan. “You are exhausting sometimes, Dean.”

“Yeah, look who’s talking. Now go to sleep, or disconnect from your vessel, or whatever. Except if anything gets worse, then get back in there and make a fuss.”

Cas didn’t answer. Dean frowned and peered at him.

“Looks like he took your advice,” Sam said, then got up and began fishing through their supplies duffle. “I’m gonna go set up a perimeter around the property,” he said, pulling out a can of salt.

“Why not just the room?”

“His vessel’s in here, but not all of him. I’m giving him a safe place to sleep.”

“Oh.” Dean stood up and beckoned for the can with his hand. “Here, give me that, I’ll do it.”

“Nah, you should stay with Cas,” Sam said, giving Dean a long look.

After a few moments, Dean dropped his gaze to Cas’s resting vessel and nodded. “Thanks.”

As Sam closed the door quietly behind himself, Dean looked around. Just where was Cas keeping his real body? Was he bleeding out buckets of silver blood right in this very room, in the dimension next door? Was his re-mangled wing tucked into the lobby, or resting over the Impala? Dean wished he could see him, if only to stroke the bridge of one of his noses, or give his shoulder a few comforting pats.

Dean pulled out his cell and rolled through his contacts until he got to the Es and clicked on the most recently added contact, Eye Patch.

“What do you want, Jalen was almost asleep.”

“Hey, nice to hear from you, too. So, uh, we got a nebula.”

“You got the culture?”

“I mean we got a nebula. One of those freaky-bird things.”

“Wait, you brought a whole live nebula back from Heaven?”

“Well, not  _ live _ . Not anymore.”

“You--” Lily sighed, and her breath crackled loudly through the phone. “Right. It’s okay. It’s fine. I can work with that.”

“Yeah, well, you should know we hit a snag.”

“What snag?” Lily asked, her voice bubbling with annoyance.

“We met a seraph.”

Lily didn’t respond at first. Finally, she said, “I take it the angel wasn’t a fan.”

“Not so much. I ganked it, but not before it fucked up one of Cas’s wings and riddled him with holes.”

Lily sucked in a breath. “Fuck, how bad is it?”

“Well, Cas is lucid, but he’s in a shit ton of pain. Also, he’s been checking out whenever he can. Says he’s ‘disconnecting from his vessel’. Is that, uh, a real bad sign?”

Lily sighed. “I mean, it’s not great, but it doesn’t mean he’s on the verge of death. Just focusing on more important things than his vessel right now. Just...get him back here, and we’ll figure it out. This is gonna set us back a couple of weeks.”

“Isn’t that pretty much the beginning?”

“Yup.”

Dean sighed. “Well, that’s just awesome.”

“Get him back here, Dean. We’ll figure it out from there. Anyways, I gotta hit the hay. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Dean hung up. With a sigh, he got up from Cas’s bed and moved over to his and Sam’s. He pulled off his jeans and shirt and slipped on some sweatpants and a shirt that didn’t smell quite as much. He looked at the toothbrush and toothpaste in their little Ziploc baggie for a moment, then decided that could wait until morning. Slipping into the side of the bed closest to Cas, he turned away from the light that he left on for Sam and quickly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Lily and Jalen were waiting for them out front when they came up on the Bunker. From the looks of it, Lily had found a baseball and mitt somewhere, and was now pitching to Jalen. Jalen was using a tire iron in lieu of a bat. In fact, Dean was pretty sure it was one of the tire irons he used on Baby. 

“Hey, hey,” Dean said, jumping out of the car. “Put that down, Jesus.” Taking the tire iron gently from Jalen’s hands, he turned to Lily. “You haven’t burned down the Bunker while I was away?”

“Nope. But it sounds like you three managed to destroy all my hard work over the past couple of weeks. Where’s your angel?”

Dean gestured to the back seat. Lily walked over and opened the door slightly. Cas began to scootch over to the edge of the seat, but Lily held up a hand. “Ah, ah, you’re staying in the car. We’re going straight to the meadow.” She shut the door on Cas unceremoniously and walked over to the trunk. Banging on it twice, she said, “Nebula in here?”

“Yeah. And would you...just be careful with her, jeez.”

At Lily’s look of confusion, Sam leaned out the window. “He’s talking about the car.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Would you pop the trunk for me?”

Sam disappeared back into the car. The trunk opened with a faint  _ click _ .

Lily opened it and peered inside. “Nice stash,” she said, her gaze flitting to the weapons on either side. Inspecting the nebula, she said, “Yeah, I can work with this. Sam, tell me you got a walk-in freezer in the Bunker.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, you’re gonna take Jalen back inside and stick this thing in that freezer. Dean, Cas, and I are gonna go out to the meadow and check out the damage.”

“Hey, since when do you start giving orders?” Dean asked as Lily made her way to the Bunker garage.

“Since you put me in charge of fixing up your angel. Now come one, it’s already four in the afternoon. Let’s get going.”

* * *

The damage, it turned out, was pretty bad. Many of Cas’s stitches had indeed ripped open. He’d probably been dripping blood all the way from Akron to Lebanon. And, to make matters worse, there were some new ones--not long, but very deep.

And Cas’s wing, the one they’d spent so long binding up--completely fucking mangled. Worse than before. Cas let out a piteous moan every time they so much as touched it.

Lily stood back from Cas and placed her hands on her hips. She shook her head. “This is not good.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean said.

Cas huffed.

Lily sighed. “Well, I guess we start all over again. Wing first, I think. It’s hard to work on his torso if his wing is in the way, without jostling the wing and making it worse.”

Dean dragged a hand over his face. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We doing the wing tonight?”

“Yep. No good delaying it.”

Dean walked over to the pick up truck and hefted up the roll of bandages and rappelling equipment stashed in the back. This was gonna be a long fucking week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was just another transitional chapter, just to sort of see how the brothers react to what they've seen and get the boys back home. More to come soon, although I'm watching my fiancee play through Last of Us II (no spoilers, for those of you who are gamers) so it might take a little longer:) Thanks for sticking with me guys!


End file.
